The Night Site - For Beginners

Well you've got an interest in astronomy, you've had a thought about trying it out. But you've got no telescope or no fancy equipment. Well that's the biggest misconception that an astronomer must have a telescope, you don't! You can see plenty of things with just your eyes or modest binoculars!

   Thousands of stars.
   The Moon.
   Eclipses.
   Planets - Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are easy to see.
   Meteors - Either sporadic meteors or meteor showers.
   Satellites.
   Comets (when a bright enough one is visible, not very often unfortunately).
   Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights, if you're lucky enough).
   Star clusters - M45 (the Pleiades, better known as the Seven Sisters).
   The Milky Way.
   Nebulae - M42 the Orion Nebula, visible as a misty haze in Orion's sword.
   Galaxies - M31 the Andromeda galaxy is the furthest object away visible to the naked eye, some 2.2 million light-years away. If you live in the southern hemisphere the 2 Magellanic clouds are visible too!

You can get details about the Moon, planets and meteor showers on the Sky this Month page.

Before you even think about committing to buying binoculars or a telescope. You really must be certain that astronomy is the thing for you. So do some observing with your eyes and learn your way around the sky first.

The sky is divided into constellations 88 in total. Some are big and bright, some are small and faint!

Orion (The Hunter) Known for the bright 3 stars that make up the belt.	Ursa Major (The Great Bear) Contains the well known "Plough" or "Big Dipper".
Cygnus (The Swan).	Cassiopeia (A mythical Queen of Ethiopia) An easy to spot "W" shape.	Leo (The Lion).

These are some of the best well known and easist to spot. One point to remember is that in the sky, they will be huge. A mistake I always made when looking for a constellation was thinking its going to be small like in the picture in the book. But its not, they're going to be bigger! So keep that in mind when you're trying to find one.

Also they won't nessacarly appear the oriantation they are shown, they can be on their side upside or just about anything, all depending on what time or year and what the time is. For example in winter (for the northern hemisphere), Orion as it gets dark is lying down on his right side in the east, as it gets later into the night he's standing up in the south, then as the Sun starts rising he's down in the west on his left side.