[AstralTraveller (David)]

Nick,

This is a common problem which I'm sure we have all experienced, so don't be put off. A few good ideas:

• Spend some time leaning the naked eye stars. I used to go into the backyard with my copy of Nortons Star Atlas and learn the major constellations and asterisms. Sometimes it is worth holding the chart over your head and lgoking up while doing this. This will save a lot of time when you have your scope out.
• Binos are very useful. Many 'naked eye' stars won't be visible from a suburban backyard. Also many of the brighter fuzzies will be visible in even small binos (eg eta carina, omega centauri, orion nebula). Don't go for large high-power ones. They are heavy to hold and they magnify the inevitable shake of your hands. I think 8x40 is a good choice.
• What I did was to work out the field of view (fov) of my finder scope an low power eyepieces (in degrees). I then used the scale on my chart (in mm per degree) to work out the diameter of a circle (in mm) that corresponded to each fov. I then drew circles of those diameters onto an overhead transparency sheet and coloured the area outside them black (this was very much pre-computer). I could then place the circles over the chart and work out what chunk of the sky I could see with either the binos, finder or scope. I then knew if star A was in the fov whether star B should or should not also be in the fov. I could also work out how many fovs I had to hop in a given direction to get from A to B.

With a bit of practice I was soon star-hopping like a real astronomer .

cheers,
Dave