Best beginner objects by season for southern hemisphere?

[mbaddah]

I want to compile a list of the best objects to observe per season (and circumpolar) for the southern hemisphere, similar to the following page on the Starizona website:

http://starizona.com/acb/basics/best_objects.aspx

i.e. A few nebulas, clusters and galaxies per season.


e.g.
Summer- Orion Nebula, Beehive cluster
Autumn - Galaxies leo triplet, Sombrero etc...

If anyone could help me in generating this list (or direct me to one that's already been done) it would be greatly appreciated, thank you :D

[ausastronomer]

Hi,

The Southern Skies Telescope Club observing list from the Astronomical League would be a great place to start and keep you busy for a while.

http://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/southsky/sskytele.htm

There are 100 targets in the list in RA order. It is an excellent list for a beginner/intermediate Southern Skies observer to work towards.

My own 600 target list is attached to this page, as an addendum, as a goal for more experienced observers to work towards

Here is a direct link to the 100 target Southern Skies List


http://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/southsky/sskylist.htm

Cheers,
John B

[mbaddah]

Many thanks for that John :) I'll start sifting through them and organising them into an excel spreadsheet. Cheers.

[mbaddah]

I have converted and uploaded the "The Southern Skies Telescope Club" top 100 objects into an excel format (took forever!) for anyone to use and manipulate for their own perusal. Hope it's beneficial.

Thanks again John.

[floyd_2]

You could consider having a look at the Deepsky software package as well. It's uses a database back end, and has some fairly rich search and What's Up functions. All results are returned in a spreadsheet like fashion with an option of printing finder charts etc as well.

It has a LOT more functionality than I'm noting here. I've used it since it was originally released for observational astronomy.

If you like to log your observations, it also has pretty good logging options too. I have used it in the past for visual astronomy for planning the night, and intend to start using it once again when my new scope arrives.

As an aside, back in my olden days when I did visual astronomy with my 15", I logged all of my observations using a headset mic plugged into a tiny minidisc recorder. When the night was over, I would play the recordings back into Dragon Naturally Speaking on my PC and it would convert it all to text ready for pasting into my observation logs in Deepsky. It was the ultimate way to enjoy observing for the evening without needing a pad and pen / computer etc to record my logs.

Dean

[mbaddah]

Hi Dean,

The Deepsky package you mention looks good i'll have to look into it. Someone else had also recommended Skytools 3 so I'll do a comparison between the two and see which suits my observation needs best.

The headset mic is an interesting idea. Although knowing how much I chatter during the night when I'm out on the field, I'm not sure how Deepsky will interpret me talking about how hungry i am always :rofl:

By the way I noticed you now have Orion XX14i "coming soon" :D Missed the Obsession too much :lol:?

[floyd_2]

After getting out under the stars with my guidescope for a few evenings, I realised how much I still enjoy observational astronomy (as well as imaging). Of course, I have to keep up with you and your acquisitions as best I can too :P

Dean