What things should I learn first?

[Waratah (Chris)]

So I have been reading some basic astronomy books and my planisphere for about a month, staring up at the sky most clear nights.

I have binoculars and a field scope I use for birdwatching. Standing in suburban Sydney.

Apart from Crux I really can't seem to locate any constellations. I can pick out the tail of Scorpius, but that's about it. I look at the Moon but can't relate any features to anything in my books. I can identify Venus and Mars. The star atlas PDF's here are a wall of confusion, as are most of the star maps in my books.

Can someone please give me some guideposts of how to progress my learning of constellations?

Thanks,

Chris

[croweater (Richard)]

Hi Chris. I recommend you download Stellarium to your phone, tablet or pc. Makes finding stuff fairly easy. A google search will find it. The basic version is free for android (I think there is a small fee for ios) and it is an excellent app that most astro enthusiasts will highly recommend .
Cheers, Richard

[ronson]

Hi Chris,
I would recommend finding a local astronomy club and going out with them for observations. It’s a quick and social path to learn the night sky.

[ReidG]

"Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope."


An excellent product and if you get really keen later can even direct your telescope to what you click on.





It has lots of options in setting up and it can be confusing to beginners but as suggested joining a local group would probably be helpful.


What Stellarium shows is an image intended to display on a dome overhead. What is in the middle is overhead and around the edges is the horizon.


Those constellations were apparently named by people on magic mushrooms and to make it worse they were in the northern hemisphere where things look different. If you have Stellarium they become less important anyway.

[Waratah (Chris)]

Thanks for all the advice!

I have downloaded Stellarium and whilst I already had Night Sky 2, this one seems more straight forward and less confusing for constellation ID. I was able to align most of Centaurus and Triangulum Australae last night.

Sutherland seems to be my most local club, and they have a "visitor" night in August which I will try and attend.