What it Takes to be a
Successful Amateur Astronomer
by JC Willette

Sitting here last month when our 3 observing sessions were clouded and rained out, I began to think about why or how to be successful as an amateur astronomer. What makes us continue to want to look at the stars and universe? What is it that keeps our interest in this glorious hobby? In this article I will try to provide you with the basics that keep us up at night planning our next observing session.

Desire:
I know of many residences that house some of the most unused telescopes in the country. Many folks buy these instruments for their children or even themselves and they end up in the attic or garage and collect dust for ages. This is the unfortunate fate of a lot of these instruments that have been purchased for the recreational use scanning the night skies. There are hundreds of projects that these could be used for, so many I can't start listing them here! Our huge universe has something in the night sky for everyone and it's only a matter of finding the things that interest you personally. I believe that we can classify the motivations into two categories for the typical observer.

On October 5, 2002, I hinted to it in our observing article. I talked about the mushroom asterism and how Brian and I searched for it. This I will call the Hunt. There is no more thrill than to track down an object in the sky and finally capturing it in your own telescope. There are billions of folks on this earth. How many of them can find the mushroom asterism? How about Andromeda Galaxy or any of the other Messier objects? How many can identify more than three constellations? Hunting for deep sky objects isn't the easiest thing to do, not even with a “Go-To” telescope. For those who look down on the “Go-To” scopes, I will tell you that you still need to know what you are searching for to use it. If you don't believe me, come to the next party and I will allow you to use one without any help and you can tell me afterwards. As a beginner, finding anything in the sky is something to tell the neighbors about!

The second I will relate to is Wonder. Most deep sky objects are nothing more than a fuzzy ball or glow in the eyepiece. They are typically colorless and appear in gray scale without movement. Most of these are so faint that you need averted vision to see or begin to see them. Observing one of these objects in your eyepiece is like discovering it for the first time as compared to seeing it in a Hubble picture. This kind of makes a link between the observer and the universe as they see it. This can't be captured through a photograph. The light that enters the end of your telescope from the Andromeda Galaxy has taken 2.8 million light years to traverse across space and hit your eyeball to record an image on your retina that is sent to your brain. This is turned into an image that you can recognize. This is an incredible feat if you stop and think about it. This galaxy of gasses, dust, stars and planets are out there just waiting for you to find in your eyepiece. It is a shame that so many folks are born, raise a family, and die without beholding the grandeur of the universe they are part of. I challenge you to come to a star party and see for yourself. It's about taking time to look, to see the beauty lies in knowing what you are observing!

Knowing the Sky:
To start with, you will need to learn the basic constellations and some prominent stars for each season you are going to be viewing in. There are several star charts (maps) available from several sources. Your local astronomy society is a good place to start, a planetarium, library or even the internet. These will help you make sense of the sky and help as a guidepost. You will also need to know where North, South, East and West are. A compass will assist you until you can locate Polaris, the North Star.

Dark Periods:
Unless you are studying the moon, it is your enemy for deep sky objects. Observing close to a large metropolis will also kill your viewing from the sky glow from the lights of the city. Learning the motion and phases of the moon will aid in avoiding disappointment and the loss of faint objects while observing. A good calendar, handbook or software will assist in deciding when it will truly be dark any given night.

Observing Conditions:
Every night you go out to observe will not be alike. Our atmosphere creates lots of problems for astronomers. The atmosphere is often turbulent and cloudy. The most important factors are seeing and transparency.

Seeing describes how steady the atmosphere is. As light travels through the atmosphere and comes into contact with varying temperatures, it can be refracted acting like a large lens. This will bend the light as it travels causing the stars to twinkle in the night. This can be so severe that stars close to the horizon will appear to dance about. Poor seeing makes your objects blurry and dimmer, making fainter objects difficult to observe. To annotate this, astronomers use a scale to classify the seeing on any given night.

Transparency is classifying how much light is passing through the atmosphere. Our atmosphere is a hazard to any light traveling through it. We have clouds, dust and moisture that may keep some or all of the light from reaching your telescope. As you peer up into the sky, it may appear cloudless but as you look into your telescope you may find that you are not seeing all that you could see.

Proper Time and Place Let me talk about the sun for a moment. When our closest star is high in the sky, it is so bright and hot that without protection we can get sunburned in a short period of time. Then a few hours later it is setting and becomes much dimmer and redder as in the case of a beautiful sunset. The reason the sun is not as bright and redder is the result of the amount of atmosphere that the sunlight must travel through to reach us. When an object is overhead the amount of air is much smaller than an object on the horizon, which passes through a larger amount of air. The amount of air that you are looking through when an object is directly overhead is considered 1 airmass unit. When an object is about 30 degrees above the horizon it is considered to be 2 airmass units. At about 30 degrees you have doubled the amount of air the light has to travel through to reach your telescope. For this reason, you will want to observe objects higher than 30 degrees above the horizon.

Dark Adaptation For those of us who hunt the deep sky objects, we count on our eyes to see the fain details in them. I have read several articles on dark adaptation and most will tell you it takes 30 to 45 minutes without lights to for your eyes to become adapted to the dark. You will notice right off that if you attend a star party, the use of regular flashlights is frowned upon. You may think you have arrived at a major accident when you see all the red flashlights and blinkers about the observing site. Even the red lights can do harm to your to your night vision and the ability to see the details in the faint objects. You might want to buy an eye patch to cover the eye you use to observe in the telescope when reading your sky charts with the other eye. You always want to try to protect your night vision from bright lights of any kind. You will notice that folks who have attended star parties will use their parking lights to navigate by when approaching an observing site after sundown.

What to Look For To be a successful astronomer you will need to have a good idea of what the object will look like ahead of time. Most photos you see from the Hubble Telescope will not look anything like what you will see in your eyepiece. I can not stress this enough, most objects will be hazy and featureless without bright colors seen in the photos. Knowing how large and how bright it will appear in your telescope and eyepiece at a certain magnification is the key to being successful! Most of this comes from experience. I suggest that you start with the brighter objects and work down to the fainter objects.

What You Are Looking At Do you want to get bored quickly? Don't take the time to learn what you are looking at. If you follow this you will quickly become bored! Visit a local sky party, college bookstore, local bookstore or even the internet and find an Astronomy 101 textbook or website. Most of these are written in non-technical (no math) language and directed to anyone who is interested in astronomy. I further recommend picking up the Sky & Telescope and Astronomy monthly magazines where you can get deeper into the astronomy field. Your local astronomy society will be glad to point you to more resources pertaining to the night skies.

Star Patterns Recognizing star patterns is an important part of astronomy. First you will learn to recognize them as constellations in the sky. This is extremely important in finding deep sky objects. I must note that if you learn a constellation under the sky glow of a city such as Las Vegas you may become disoriented at a dark sky site by the amount of stars visible in the constellation. I strongly suggest that you take your time and study the constellations at the dark sky sites to really become familiar with them.

Learn to describe stars in triangles such as right angle, equilateral or isosceles triangles. These triangles can be skinny or fat, long or short, but will help in identifying them and for others to locate. Rectangles, squares and parallelograms also come in handy for distinctive descriptions.

Star hopping is the best way to learn this skill. Learning to translate what you see on the sky chart and locating the stars in the sky or finder scope takes practice. Often you go from the bright stars to the dimmer stars in locating deep sky objects. This process takes some time and patience. Many astronomers will become frustrated in locating the deep sky objects, but it is like anything else, practice will improve with patience. This star hopping cultivates patience, which is vital to observing subtle details and faint objects.

Note about observing deep sky objects. Do not peek at them in the eyepiece. You may need upwards of five or ten minutes to study and object and observe the fine details. The atmospheric conditions may not be ideal for their observing and you may have to look at it for several minutes before parts of it become evident to you. Which brings us to a type of vision that you will have to practice to see some objects better.

Averted Vision The learning of how to view an object by averted vision will increase your chances of seeing the fine details of faint objects. If you look directly at an object in an eyepiece, your eye will be picking up the light on the rods that are less as dense as if you would look to the side of the object. Let me explain if you are right eyed, look off to the right of the object somewhere between just below the object to just above the object. If you are left eyed, look off to the left of the object somewhere between just below the object to just above the object. This will put the gathering point on the retina at the densest part of the eye. It also concentrates the light on the part of the eye that is most sensitive to light. Please check out the tutorial on averted vision on this website for further information.

Patience This is a huge one! Observing deep sky objects isn't for those who are impatient. A quote from Tony Flanders will explain it all “There are plenty of flashy things in the sky, but astronomy is not a flashy hobby; it is meant for people who like to take life slow and savor it subtleties. It requires patience and persistence; its essence is the accumulation of knowledge and the cultivation of skill.” It took me a year and a half to find the Ring Nebula in my telescope. I had seen it in others before, but never in mine!

You must be patient by waiting for the right opportunity to visit a dark sky site, wait for the right dark night, good weather, wait for exceptional conditions which can reveal challenging objects for the first time, wait for moments of good seeing when details become apparent, willingness to brave the cold, using averted vision and practice the skills necessary to observe the fainter objects and fine details that are visible to the experienced observer. If you do not see the object in the eyepiece, be brave and let someone know so they can guide you or assist you in observing these interesting night sights.

Observation Deep sky objects are a challenge! Many of them you will have to work at to see the detail in the fain object. You will have to use averted vision and various eye positions throughout the field of view and wait for moments of good viewing. You will have to learn to compile several glimpses into one good picture to store in your mind's eye. An excellent way to do this is to sketch what you see in the eyepiece. Your sketches may not be great but you will quickly realize that you have noticed several unseen details that you missed previously.

I hope that this tutorial will help those of you who are new and old to this great hobby of ours the study of the heavens!