Hi all. I will avoid any comment on the peripheral discussion, and add my experience to the thread. My father and I started learning together when we built a 4" refractor and mounted it on a pier in our garden. It was impossible for me to get around the sky and find objects without learning much about where those objects were located. We used the exact method described by Chuck to find objects, especially for dim objects because actually looking through the finder was usually unhelpful, due to the limited field of view and a lack of visibility for many objects in the finder scope. As we advanced and started looking for more difficult objects, we began to use an ingenious method that my father devised (I'm sure it was not an original idea). For each star atlas that we owned, he made different sized circles printed on clear plastic sheets, each one carefully sized to represent the field of view of a specific eyepiece. We would begin by finding a nearby star that was bright enough to easily locate in the finder. Then we would "walk" our way to the object, one field of view at a time. One of us would sit at the map with the printed circle for the eyepiece we were using and give directions, while the other would look through the eyepiece and move the scope. It was quite easy to find even dim and obscure objects by working our way from an easy star to the object. Over the years we had several different atlases that we used, and each time my Dad would print a new set of circles to match our eyepieces. Although I now use the computer almost exclusively (The Sky X) to find objects for my camera, my familiarity with the night sky has been the source of great pleasure over my lifetime, and I highly recommend learning whatever you can about it. I still remember much of what I learned, although I occasionally draw a blank now, even on the name of bright stars. That is my 2-cents worth. Cheers, Tyler -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Hards Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 8:02 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Frustration at the eyepiece: help! I'm even later to this thread, and what worked for me typically won't work for most people. I know some people who don't even feel it necessary to learn the sky as one would become familiar with a terrestrial map, for example. I learned the sky starting when I was about nine or ten years old, from my parents back yard on the light-polluted east bench of Salt Lake City, with 3 to 4-inch scopes. The light pollution actually helped me at first, by reducing the number of stars visible to only the brightest. Picking out constellations was easy. As I got older and got to darker sites, it was then easy to fill in the gaps in the charts with progressively fainter stars. BTW, when I speak about learning the consellations, I don't see mental lines connecting the dots. I see patterns of individual stars. Those lines you see in books that try and make the constellations look like an outline of what they are named for seem very obfuscatory, to me at least. It took me about two or three years before I could glance at any part of the sky visible from here and know my way around pretty well. Knowing the brighter stuff first helped me to not get overwhelmed when under a pristine, dark sky. The southern sky is totally unknown to me. It would be like starting all over, or suddenly being on an alien planet across the galaxy. Once you know the star patterns, you can easily pinpoint the locations of objects on the sky from their positions on an atlas chart. Having a good eye for spacial relationships and proportions helps. Back in those days, before GoTo or reflex sights, I invented my own method of finding objects. I use a straight finder, and keeping both eyes open, superimpose the cross-hair in the finder on the spot in the sky seen with the unaided eye. In a low-power eyepiece, the object is there 95% of the time, first attempt. You can see that I'm not even using the sky view that the finder offers, just the cross-hairs. Sometimes, and for dim objects, I'd concentrate on the finder view to tweak the view in the main scope after rough aiming, but not often. These days we have a myriad of reflex sights that essentially do the same thing, and you don't have to do the two-eye mental overlapping that I did. It seems that dealing with a different image in each eye simultaneously isn't a very easy thing for some people. Anyway, more old-timer blather. I could go on but wont since I hear crickets and snoring. My 3 cents. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".