Beginners guide to deep sky?

[bathurst77]

Hi guys
can anyone point me to a website or something with a list of easier messier/ngc deep sky objects for beginners in sthrn hemisphere?

thanks n all

[Jupiter]

I still consider myself a beginner and I started out with the easier ones, ie eta carina, triffid, lagoon, swan nebula, omega centauri, 47tuc, and then built from that, I use skymappro6 to find other stuff, but as I said start with a small easy base and slowly build from that, the smaller objects are easier to find once you get your eye in and become familiar with observing and what your scope can and can't do.

[bathurst77]

thats what i want to do, but i dont know which ones are the easy and which are harder. Also some may be easy from nthrn hemisphere but much harder here (eg andromeda)

I thought someone could recommend a site or a list of good ones to start with so i dont waste dark nights trying to find almost impossible ones at first and getting frustrated and discouraged.

I want to make a checklist and work them each in turn, learn as i go along.

[DobDobDob]

Try these sites:

http://www.davidpaulgreen.com/tumol.html

http://www.seds.org/messier/

[Jupiter]

I bought a book, its called Astronomy by Ian Ridpath, it has all the constellations, star charts and a heap of stuff about scopes and observation techniques etc etc, but I predominantly use it for the constellations as each one has some features of interest, so on a particular night I will pick say Sagittarius and go and hunt around there for as much stuff as I can find, a good 'hard' one to look for is Centaurus A in Centaurus, if you don't have star maps you need to print some out then refer to them at night, plan your session and try and hunt everything down, tonight when the moon sets at around midnight I am planning to go out to my dark location for some hunting and I hope to stay there until Andromeda rises, then maybe orion nebula.
The mistake I made when starting out with my dob was I went to hard too quickly, I burnt myself out by going out every night almost, plan ahead watch the moon phases and hope like heck that on the dark nights there are no clouds about, generally you get lucky, the other side of astronomy I like is the DIU aspect, there are things to busy yourself with while its sunny or cloudy.
Also try and hookup with someone who knows a lot more than you do, and as I am about to try in November, go to a star party.

[bathurst77]

Thanks guys, from the tips here and those sites im building a list of "things to find"..
Now Imatching the rain, so tonight THE MOON is hard....

[acropolite]

This site (http://www.ngc891.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Stars&file=constellation&catalogue=Caldwell)may help, it's a catalog of objects, there are location maps for each object listed as well. On the same site there is also a detailed printable observers challenge whole of sky chart (http://www.ngc891.com/docs/challenge.pdf), it's a little incomplete for southern hemisphere users but can be added to as you progress. The chart is best printed at A3 or larger.

[Sentinel]

I do observing lists for people to follow here in New Zealand.

You'll find these at;
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~michellekemp/Observing/ObservingLists.htm

If you need any help feel free to email me at;
paulkemp(at)ihug.co.nz

Good Luck.