What should I be looking at now?

[Garth (Garth)]

Hi all,

Need some inspo...where and what should I be looking at now?

G

[Garth (Garth)]

Got a Meade 12” LX200 GPS but still a newb

[Startrek (Martin)]

Garth,
Do you have a laptop or PC ?
If so, then download Stellarium, it’s a really easy to use Planetarium and it’s free
Just type your local latitude and longitude and local time and it will give you every object that’s available to view or image in the night sky year in year out at the click of a mouse
An alternative is Cartes Du Ceil which is great but I prefer Stellarium
There are also other planetarium apps for iPhones as well
Cheers

[RyanJones]

Hi Garth,

I’m with Martin, download stellarium. It’s invaluable to help you learn the night sky and what is around and where. If you download it on your phone it can use the phones tilt sensors and you can actually point it at the sky where you’re looking and show you what is there.

As far as what is out at the moment, Orion’s Nebula is a big one. Nice and bright and easy to see. With the apature and focal length you have, you won’t see all of it but you can look for the core ( Triangulum). Try some globular clusters too. 47 Tuc is a nice one to see. Not sure if you can fit it in your field of view but Pleiades is a beautiful cluster of young bright blue stars. The list goes on......

Hope this helps.

Ryan

[Outcast (Carlton)]

Hi Garth,

I use Stellarium on my computer, it's free to download... for my android phone I use Sky Safari Plus.. it costs, a bit more than Stellarium for Android but, it is very useful & with a wifi dongle, will allow you to control your scope should you wish...

I think the basic version of Sky Safari (no scope control) may even be free..

Cheers