Clear skies in Perth tonight.

[Rod-AR127 (Rod)]

From a 90% cloudy day to a cloudless night, fantastic.
Bortle 6 sky, Venus to my north, Jupiter and four moons straight up ( there's probably a technical term for that.)
I do need a filter for the CA though, even Jupiter was badly effected.
I got my 10x50 findersope reattached to my frac today and also my 10x50 bino's onto a tripod.
Bino's are so much easier to scan the sky than swinging the EQ mount around.

Saw a fuzzy cluster below Sagittarius so l zoned in on it, no idea what l was looking at. I made a sketch and will get a good star map and work it out, it was a very distinctive pattern, not M6 or M7, this Newby will just have to do some homework.
Great to understand how to set up my EQ mount to SCP, makes tracking and the whole night so much easier and way more fun.

[mura_gadi (Steve)]

If you have a mobile phone there are some good free apps that allow sky search, identifying objects and supply the NGC numbers etc... Good enough to get started with.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Rod,
Do you have a home computer or laptop ? Preferably a laptop so you can take it outside with you near your Telescope
Download a copy of Stellarium ( free )
It’s a planetarium which gives you a view of the night sky at your observing location 24/7 year after year
It’s a must for any visual astronomer or Astrophotographer
You can also use it to navigate your goto mount if you have one
An excellent Astro tool with endless features
Cheers
Martin

[Startrek (Martin)]

Originally Posted by Startrek

Rod,
Do you have a home computer or laptop ? Preferably a laptop so you can take it outside with you near your Telescope
Download a copy of Stellarium ( free )
It’s a planetarium which gives you a view of the night sky at your observing location 24/7 year after year
It’s a must for any visual astronomer or Astrophotographer
You can also use it to navigate your goto mount if you have one
An excellent Astro tool with endless features
Cheers
Martin

PS forgot to attached my basic Stellarium procedure to get up and running

[Rod-AR127 (Rod)]

Thanks, I'll have a look at that pdf. I do have a copy of Stellarium on disk but will have to download to my notebook, no drive on it.
No Goto mount here EXOS2 , hand cranked.

Edit. Downloaded Stella, setup, great tool, I'm going to spend a lot of time here l think.