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(Return to David Chandler Company Home Page) [The Help file for Deep Space contains three narative sections entitled Overview for Beginners, Overview for Active Observers, and Overview for Teachers. The following is based on the Overview for Beginners section.]Deep SpaceOVERVIEW FOR BEGINNERSDeep Space was designed to be a general purpose star mapping tool to meet the most demanding needs of experienced observers, but it is also well suited to the needs of beginners. Beginners, more than anyone else, need accurate maps and observing information that show exactly what to look for, and where and when. You will find Deep Space to be a reliable guide. If you let Deep Space guide you in observing the night sky, you won't be a beginner for long! The first thing you should do with Deep Space is explore it. Read through the Quick Help, and perhaps the Menu Layouts at the end of the Extended Help File, and try out some of the options. When you are ready to do some real observing you will need input your latitude, longitude, and time zone in the Observing Site option at the MAIN MENU. In the site list distributed with the program there are a few major star party sites followed by a list of general regional sites. The latter are intended to help get you started quickly. If you don't know your latitude and longitude, pick the general regional site closest to you. Sooner or later you should consult a map, an almanac, or ask at your city hall or the library reference desk for more exact data. Accuracy within a few degrees is sufficient for most purposes. Your first goal should be to learn to recognize some of the constellations. The constellations are your stepping stones. You will be using them to find your way around the sky. They lead you to all kinds of beautiful sights in binoculars and telescopes. You don't have to learn the constellations all at once. Start with the ones containing the brightest stars. These will serve as a framework for the sky. You can fill in the details at your leisure. The map that will probably best help you learn the constellations is the Circular Sky View map. Here is a step-by-step guide for producing one:
Now go outside. (This is the most important part!) Hold the map overhead with the top pointing north. Read the map with a small flashlight, preferably one with a red filter to preserve your night vision, but any small flashlight will do at this point since you will be concentrating on the bright stars. Identify the brightest stars and any bright planets that are in the sky. You will be surprised how easy it is to recognize the constellations when you have an accurate star map. Once you find a constellation, look for it again each night until you can recognize it immediately. It won't take many nights before you know your way around the sky. Continue the process through the year as the seasons change, or wait up later at night for a new crop of stars to rise over the eastern horizon. The moon is another obvious starter object. Notice how the moon moves and changes phase during the month, choose 1 day intervals for about 27 days with the 'S' option.) The phase of the moon is directly related to its position in the sky. Look at the moon with binoculars or a telescope to see its craters, mountains, and lava planes. "Relief" features are best seen along the "terminator" (the line between day and night) where shadows are the longest. The location of the terminator changes each night, revealing different slices of the moon throughout the month. Choose the Almanac option to compute the moon phases throughout the year. Go out within 4 or 5 days either side of first quarter if you want to observe the moon in the evening sky. When the moon is up it washes out most of the sky, so choose dates near New Moon for prime observing of fainter objects throughout the night. A third quarter moon will not rise until about midnight, so around third quarter you will have a dark sky during the first half of the night. Whether the moon is out or not, you will be able to see the bright planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, whenever they are in the sky. Plot their locations for a given night or individually over a range of dates. In plotting for a range of dates if you choose the "H" or "B" option, while you are on the Default map or a Circular Sky View or Horizon View map, it will plot X's to indicate how the planet will move relative to the horizon as the planets and stars together drift westward from night to night. Mercury is also bright, but it must be seen when it is farthest from the sun. Plot Mercury with the "H" or "B" option to see how it moves relative to the horizons over several weeks or months. Step through the positions to identify the dates when it will best be visible in the evening or early morning sky. West-facing (pm) or East-facing (am). Horizon maps work well as Mercury finder charts. The best "first telescope" is a pair of binoculars! Pick a moonless night and go to the best dark sky location you can manage. Print out an all-sky map ahead of time. Take a flashlight covered with a red filter to be able to read the maps without destroying your night vision. For an excellent filter, find an art or drafting supply store and ask for "Rubylith". If you have a laptop computer, get enough to cover the screen also for nighttime use. When you get to your dark sky site, scan the sky with your binoculars, particularly along the Milky Way and look for little "cotton balls," "smudges," and resolved star clusters. Mark them on your map and try to identify what you saw by displaying the brighter deep sky objects. Limit the list to about 9th or 10th magnitude for binocular objects. Select everything in the left-hand column. On your second try, plot out some of the brighter objects ahead of time and look specifically for them. The constellations you learned will become more meaningful as you use them to find your way around the sky to locate objects of interest. In the summer sky concentrate particularly along the Milky Way in Scorpius and Sagittarius through Cygnus. These areas are rich with star clusters and nebulae. In the fall the Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies (M31 and M33) are excellent targets for binoculars. In the winter be sure to scan the Milky Way from Cassiopeia and Perseus through Canis Major and Puppis. Plot the Milky Way on your all-night map. Get our book, Exploring the Night Sky with Binoculars and the planisphere, The Night Sky. Subscribe to Sky and Telescope and/or Astronomy Magazine to start building your background and awareness of the sky and astronomical events of interest. Use the Search option to find objects in the sky mentioned in your reading. You will find that the more you learn about astronomy, the more useful Deep Space will become.
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