I started my stargazing hoby when I was 10 and got my first scope (department store 50mm refractor) when I was 13, a 4" reflector at 30 and a 10" reflector at 35. After this, I got a pair of 10x50 and 11x70 binoculars.
I'm curious as to what young stargazers are using today for equipment and what they are observing most of the time. It would help if you could answer the following questions:

1. What's your favorite observing object(s)?

2. What kind of observing equipment do you use (eyes only counts too)?

3. Your age?

4. Your gender (M,F or E.T.)?

Thanks for your replies and time. Any questions about observing? I'll answer them if I can, if not, I'm sure others on the forum can.
Wishing you all clear, dark skies and hope your hoby is enjoyable for years to come.
Mr Q

I'm not sure how many youngins are on this forum, but I've noticed myself as one of the youngest at 18 so I guess I can answer for you .

1. I particularly enjoy any open star clusters, especially when using wide fields of view, but specifically I love (naturally) Saturn, Jupiter, and the Orion Nebula.

2. I have a Orion Skyquest 8" Dobsonian f/6 with the two included eyepieces and an Oxygen III nebula filter. I also have some old binoculars whose magnification escapes me at the moment.

3. About 18 and five months :P.

4. Male.

Hi Moya -
My second favorite objects are open clusters that offer red, blue, yellow and orange stars members. In a large scope the colors are nice. Sounds kinda crazy but my favorite objects are very red and bright stars (of the N class). While looking for other types of objects and I come across one, I find myself staring at these red stars in amazement at how deep red they can appear. Even with binoculars, these bright, red stars are easy targets but you have to do some searching for them.
Mr Q

1. DSOs, mostly. (not a big fan of most open clusters, though)
2. 8" Orion Dob, 10x50 binoculars, numerous accesories (full set of color and nebula filters, almost full set of Orion Ploessls, three Stratus EPs, 2x Barlow)
3. 18 and 10-1/2 months.
4. Male

1) Copernicus Crater, the whole Orion area, the Pleiades.
2)12x24 Bushnell binoculars.
3) Let's just say I was born durring the 90's.
4) Female.

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1.) I have not been into astronomy to have seen enough to be very decisive about favorites, but I like the Orion Nebula, the Double Cluster, M81 & M82, the Auriga Clusters, and the Andromeda Galaxy.
2.) My eyes (I guess my glasses probably count as part of this), Meade LXD75 SN-6AT computerized schmidt newtonian, Meade 70AZ refractor (from Walmart for $25, it has better optics then you would expect), junky $10 pair of 10x50 binos, other people's scopes.
3.) 13
4.) Male

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Wow, I guess I was wrong on assuming how many young people are here.

That makes me happy though, not only because there are people closer to my age group, but young people are still getting into astronomy early.

In over 40 years of watching beginners, young, middle age or old, the process is almost always the same. They start with stuff they can easily find as they just don't know the sky all that well. So the moon, planets, bright star clusters, Orion Nebula, M8, classics like M57, M13 and the "Big Disappointment" M31. Everything else really gets them going but M31 brings great expectations and doesn't deliver. Later, as they learn the sky and even more importantly, learn the significance of what they are looking at, they move on to less spectacular fair, faint fuzzies of all types. You have to understand what that faint fuzz patch means then they are very interesting. Of course some specialize, variable stars, solar, astrophotography etc. Most though stay pretty general. Some go for faint distant galaxies. Other prefer planetary nebula, etc. But even they are pretty general. Some like programs like the Herschel 400, Binocular M object list etc. We've had some specialize in radio astronomy. As their knowledge grows so does what they look at.

We have one boy in our club who was about 9 when he and dad joined. He absorbed astronomy like a sponge. Dad had to move to a 10" within a year to keep him in objects. By 11 he was known as the "Human Goto" He must have had 500 objects he could find in seconds in that 10" without reference to a star atlas. No member could begin to match him, even our most experienced would watch in awe. Say NGC1555 he'd say T Tarui and have it in the center of his scope 20 seconds later assuming it was in the sky. He easily beat a C9.25" goto by about double the objects in a 30 minute "John Henry" competition one night. The Celestron didn't have a chance. He gets very impatient with the C11 at Hyde. It's just way too slow finding anything. He's now taking astrophysics in College. I wonder what he'll be doing in 20 years.

We had one young member, now Dr. Peter Schultz of Brown University, go on to be a principal investigator on Deep Impact. You've likely seen him on Nova shooting a vacuum gun to make craters or hanging over a cliff in Argentina looking at impact evidence. Another high school student became a mechanical engineer, Larry Stepp. You might wonder how that relates to astronomy. He headed the optical design team for the two Gemini scopes and now heads the engineering teams designing The Thirty Meter telescope project. His first observatory telescope was an 8" fork mounted f/6 Newtonian we still use 30 years later at Hyde Memorial Observatory. He had to fit it into a $200 budget. Now its $700 million. He's finding it harder to meet however.

You never know where astronomy will lead the young. It's been great watching all these years.

Unfortunately there are far more interests for they young today. We see far fewer than we used to. Any ideas you young folk have would be appreciated.

Rick

Rick,

Huh. I can see why M31 would be a disappointment to some, but I've always liked it (this is actually the first time in a week I haven't gone out to look out at it in the early evening). One off-topic question: When I observe M31, I see another blob off to the right, within the same field of view. I know its either M32 or M110, but I can't seem to figure out which. Do you know which one it is?

Anyways, back on topic:
Everything I could say is best summed up by one word: OUTREACH!!! Following up on that, apply Saturn, Jupiter, the Moon, and M42 liberally. You can never have too much of those targets...

As an example of good outreach, down here in Santa Cruz, CA, SCIPP (Santa Cruz Institute of Particle Physics) gets kids interested in science by taking a million-volt Tesla coil out to schools and other venues. The kids (even teenagers) love it. If you can find something similar for astronomy, you could get bunches of other kids to join you.

Probably M32. It's the brighter of the two!

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Right and left, up and down have no meaning in astronomy. Too many variables. NSEW have meaning as they don't change. West is the direction everything moves in the eyepiece of a non driven scope, north is the direction to the north celestial pole. For those south latitude folks south is toward the south celestial pole. From that you should be able to get the other directions. M32 is nearly directly south of the core of M31, they have virtually the same right ascension is is compact and nearly round. M110 is North West of the core and much more oval shaped. Being larger and less dense it appears somewhat dimmer. Depending on the power M32, being closer to the core of M31 may be in the field of view while M110 outside it slightly.

See M110 and globular clusters
for a photo of M110 and globular star clusters associated with M31 and M110. It shows the oval nature. North is up in that photo, west to the right.

SEDS is always a good source for beginners. It has a shot of all three. M32 is on the upper edge of M31 while M110 well below. You rarely see M31 photographed with the compass points as it has to be tilted to fit a standard photo frame. It's just too big for most cameras without being slanted from one corner to the other.
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/m/m031.html

The DSS plate for all three with north up and west to the right is at:
http://stdatu.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_...e&fov=NONE&v3=
It's a large file.

Rick

Actually, Joey and my NexStar 9.25 SCT never did really compete head-to-head, although I did have a lot of fun sending him "down the garden path" to some obscure NGC object which I just punched into the keypad at random. He can certainly find many of the Messier and NGC objects faster than the NexStar can go to them, but then again, so can I. Still, his ability to find a huge number of objects rapidly is legend, as he often left his father in the dust sometimes at our club star parties. We once thought of "renting him out" at the Nebraska Star Party for those with their new Dobsonians. I can almost see him at NSP with a sign on his back saying, "I GO-TO FOR FOOD". Joey has now changed subjects, as he is studying biology and wildlife management, although he still enjoys a night out under the stars. Clear skies to you.

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Rick -
Wow! I thought I was unique with being able to do the "go-to" for a half dozen objects the same way. Yes, when the brain is young, it's amazing the speed/capacity of learning that is available. Mr Q

Moya - That was one of my hidden reasons for asking ages. If more youngsters are reading these posts (but have not yet registered), they will notice that others like themselves are part of this forum and, hopefully, knowing this, they may be nudged into joining the group. Hope the idea works and we see a lot more youngsters joining the forum to learn from the years of experience of us "old foggies". Mr Q

Keeping things in the proper perspective, M31 is hardly a big disappointment under a very dark sky and with the right instrument. Unfortunately, most amateur astronomers nowadays can see only the galaxy's core due to widespread light pollution.

Hmm, NGC 1555, Hind's Variable Nebula, is an extremely difficult object to observe visually. I've tried to see it a number of times from various sites and with various large apertures but have only had success using a 30-inch Tectron at 7,000 feet and with a seventh magnitude VLM at New Mexico Skies. It was the most difficult observation that I've ever made. There are only 2 reports on this object at the IAAC web site and they are from observers using 30 and 40 inch apertures. (I never bothered to send in a report.)

Participation by young people in all the traditional "nerdy" hobbies is down. This includes things like ham radio, model railroading, and amateur astronomy, of course.

http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web.../23150523.html

Dave Mitsky

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I can manually locate a hundred or more deep-sky objects without using a chart. That's probably not all that uncommon among seasoned DSO observers. A good many DSOs are visible to the naked eye from truly dark sites.

http://www.visualdeepsky.org/chat/msg01732.html

Some observers do M^3 Messier Marathons every year.

http://www.geocities.com/saberscorpx/MMMSS.html

Dave Mitsky

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Our beginners do view from their back yard at first. Lincoln, NE now has over 200,000 population so light pollution is severe. Still planets, "famous" star clusters and nebula show up quite well until they come to M31 and wonder what happened. Clusters and nebula like the Ring and M42 visually look a lot like their photo but M31 doesn't, even from a dark site. It takes a while to learn to see detail in such a low contrast object. Until then it is just a bright core surrounded by fuzz.

Joey said T Tauri not the nebula. He knew it was by the star is what I was getting at not that he saw it. I don't know if he has or not. I've seen it in my 14" using an occulting bar to block T Tauri's light. I have stumped him, but not with anything I knew how to find before I looked it up. Most anything visible in a 10" he has down to memory. Sometimes I wonder if he couldn't do a Herschel 400 marathon without ever looking at a star chart. If he's seen it or heard of it he can go to it almost instantly even in light polluted skies that block many star hop stars. Considering he was doing this at age 12 blows my mind. I spent three nights looking for M11 at that age before I found it. I was using a pipe mounted 6" f/12 with no finder scope. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

I'm just finishing up an image the area around T Tauri and will post it to the photo forum when I get the asteroids (9 of them -- a record for me) labeled. One isn't in the Minor Planet Center's Data base but I didn't process it until two months after it was taken so that one will remain lost it appears. The whole field is full of nebulosity, mostly to the south.

Our ham club here in Minnesota is dying of old age. Most members are over 70, the president over 80. Vice President is a young lad of 61. You can chat around the world on the internet far easier than by radio now. No study required. I've been a ham since 1962 and even my participation has dropped greatly. It was more fun when you built your own rigs. I can't get into store bought.

Rick

Of all the DSOs that I viewed through Al Nagler's 127mm Tele Vue apochromat and 13mm Ethos at Stellafane last year (and that included showcase objects like M27, M45, the Double Cluster, and Melotte 20), M31 was by far my favorite.

Dave Mitsky

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De gustibus non est disputandum.
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Few of us can afford such a set up. But I can imagine the view! I settle for a 50 year old Optical Craftsman 6" f/4 in my lap in a swiveling tilting patio chair. Works at 26x and gives great views, just not 100 degrees wide! Sigh. Now if you want to loan me that Ethos.... I do have mag 6.5 skies from my deck which helps a lot.

Rick

Hi - Know what you mean about everything being store-bought today. But that's progress. Been a ham since 2004 and still love it. There's just something special about picking up a mic and talking to the rest of the world - call me a romantic but doing it via radio is much more meaningful to me than doing it via the internet, as I'm doing it now. Every mode of communicating has its place and value. Active on 2m and 20m - maybee some day we'l hook up. Mr Q

Well, that type of high-end gear certainly isn't necessary for M31 to be a showstopper. Any reasonably good rich-field telescope and widefield eyepiece can provide an excellent view of M31, if they are used under *dark* skies, which was my original point.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I see the thread has veered off the original topic and before it gets too far, I'd like to hear from some more young astronomers about the above questions if any are still out there. Thanks, Mr Q