Getting Started: Your Beginner’s Complete Astronomy Reference

The simple guide to learning how to enjoy what’s up there without losing your cool down here.

By Copernicus | March 14, 2023

Part I: Reading Our Way Across The Sky

We started our modern astronomical journey by reading. Kickin’ it old school.   

That might not be what you wanted to hear. “But the skies are clear and the night is warm! There are discoveries to be had, narrator!”

Yeah, we know. But what you see when you look at that clear sky is a thousand little pinpricks of light, a thousand tiny fuzzy objects and you have no idea where to start.

Before we ever stepped outside, before we were overwhelmed with all the stars in our relatively dark backyard, we read. We leafed through our collection of ancient back issues of Astronomy magazine and absorbed every word from our favorite astronomy book. 

That book we still use today, and is still one of the best on the market. She’s perfect for those of us just getting started or jumping back in.  It’s an old book for the modern astronomer.  

The book is NightWatch: A Practical Guide To Viewing the Universe and you can get it here. We’ll wait.

Why this book? Well, aside from the fact that it is spiral bound so it can be folded flat or held overhead, the book is basically the printed version of what we do here. With less snark. It walks readers through the basics to the complicated and is stuffed with info to make going into the abyss a whole lot easier.

The charts inside are easy to use and ideal for those of us with binoculars or telescopes no matter the size. 

This was the book that walked us through everything and made venturing out that first night with our old hand-me-down telescope not as scary. It’s an excellent reference to get your hands on.

Do I Really Need A Book?

No.

But books are nice. Books also won’t make you a backyard astronomy master. So instead of spending your telescope fund money, keep saving and print the star charts below. We’ve split them into various regions, so pick the one closest to where you live, the current time of year, and print or save them.

Now, to the stars we go!

Using Astronomical Guide Posts

If you bought the book you’ll know this is the first step. If you did not buy the book, spoiler alert.

The book recommends we need to get comfortable with a few constellations.  These will be our guideposts, our turn-by-turn directions in the sky. Sailors and scientists have done this since sailors and scientists became a thing, so it will work for us too. These guideposts will help keep us centered if we get lost.  There are a lot of stars out there.

The two easiest and most important constellations to get familiar with are The Big Dipper and Orion the Hunter.  Raise your hand if you already know these.

BIG DIPPER AND ORION CONSTELLATION IMAGES

Next Lesson: Use The Constellations To Navigate The Night Sky – CLICK HERE

Once you are able to look up into the sky, no matter the season, and identify these constellations, it’s game on. You’ll start to notice them every time you look up at the night sky.

It only gets easier from here.

Star Wheels – Are They Worth It?

Star wheels are kind of tough. 

A star wheel is a magic device that looks like a grade school project. As you can see in the picture, a star wheel uses the date and time where you are to show you what can be seen in the sky above.

They are handy, but for us, we never used them much. Ours were small or not very detailed.  We would fumble trying to decide if the little black dots on the wheel was what we saw above us. Were we facing the right way? Where is north anyways? I bet if I knew where the north star was, I could point north.

Luckily for the modern astronomer, we now have apps. You’ll learn more about those later (or jumping ahead here) but for now, we don’t suggest a starwheel as a must-have for your astro toolbox.

We would be terrible tutors if we didn’t at least suggest one starwheel to add to your growing collection of tools. You can make your own Modern Astronomer one, or check out the two below.

This one is the classic and the one we used to have.  It isn’t perfectly easy to read, especially at night, but it does the job.

For something a bit more in-depth, there is this Celestron atlas, with glow-in-the-dark text, spiral-bound, and made with heavy-duty dew-resistant pages.  Okay, begrudgingly. This one is pretty awesome.

Modern Must-Have Apps for The Modern Astronomer

The best app to use to learn the sky, and through your sky watching hobby is Star Walk. It is available for both iOS and Android.  

The best feature is it’s augmented abilities to show you exactly what you are looking at when you hold it up to the sky.  Incredibly useful and exactly what the modern astronomer needs. 

For Android users, Google’s Sky Map is another incredible tool with similar features and a beautiful interface.

The only downside to using apps while stargazing is that they can ruin your night vision.  Bright lights, even from a fully dimmed phone screen can mess up all your hard work acclimating your peepers to the dark.  Ugh, we hate that. 

Now that we know a bit more about the sky, we can take off and get into some proper observing.

But we STILL aren’t buying that telescope!

Part II: Why Binoculars Beat Telescopes When Beginning Astronomy

Once we’ve gotten our bearings, when we’re able to point out a few planets and some bright stars, it won’t be long before we get hungry for more.  

We need to see farther.  See more.

Our excitement might be persuading us to buy that super affordable budget scope from the hobby store, but before we go down that rabbit hole just yet, we should look at a trusty pair of binoculars.

At first glance, binoculars are a tool solely for terrestrial observations like bird watching, people watching or far-away-sports watching.  Surprisingly though, binoculars they are absolutely indispensable for astronomy.  Especially for the beginner.

Here’s why.

Binoculars Are Portable

Binoculars are portable by design.  Their smaller size makes them easy to lug around and set up.  Pop the lens caps off and put them against our faces.  Boom.  Observing.  And because most families already have or had a pair at one time, we basically already know how to use them. 

The size we are looking for is 7×35 at a minimum.  This means that they provide 7x magnification and the lenses are 35mm in diameter.  We don’t want to get too large, that defeats the purpose.  Our current pair is a 10×50 pair which lets us dance among the moons craters and sneak in close to some fainter stars.

Remember, as portable as they are, holding them up for hours at a time can get tedious.  Luckily most binoculars can be equipped with a tripod mount that lets us attach them to an ordinary camera tripod.  

Binoculars Are Affordable

It would defeat the purpose if we spent as much as a new telescope on our beginner binoculars.  While a properly large and fancy pair will make a difference, we don’t need to.  

A simple pair, 7×35 like we mentioned above, will do just fine.  The purpose is to get comfortable navigating the dark sky with those constellations and larger celestial objects we mentioned above.  

We’ve used these from Harbor Freight before, and this pair was an awesome part of our toolbox for getting our hands dirty as we learn the sky.

Binoculars Will Last

We mentioned earlier, binoculars will last the life of the hobby.  

As beginners we use them to learn how to navigate the night sky, constellation hopping and peeking at planets.  As veterans we will use them for quick wide sky scans or to track down an object we are looking for that we can’t quite make out with the finder scope.  The “zoomed out” view of the sky helps get our bearings before dving in deeper with the scope. 

Also, what’s not to love about seeing the night sky in stereo?  Two eyes are better than one.

Simply put, we love binoculars.

Part III: How To (Finally) Pick Our First Telescope  

Its time.  

You’ve learned a ton of constellations.  Tracked a few planets across the sky.  Got lost in the craters on the moon.  You want to go deeper and want to see the big boys.  

We type “Best telescopes of…” into the search bar and dive in.  Heaven’s above!  There’s so many!  Among the different style and mounts and crazy prices we are starting to think maybe binoculars are enough.

While the types of telescopes is beyond the… scope of this article, the information is readily available.  No, we aren’t going to cover that here.

Instead, we’re going to just tell you the best beginner telescope.  Ever.

Dobsonian Reflectors:  The Best Beginner Telescope Ever

There is one telescope that combines a huge amount of light gathering capability in the most affordable package and is as easy to use as a pair of binoculars.  Its the Dobsonian reflector.

Dobsonians are big reflectors.  This means they have a large primary mirror that reflects the light entering the tube to a tilted secondary mirror that then directs the light into an eyepiece.  That is the down and dirty definition.

What makes a Dobsonian a dob is the mount.  Simple and nearly as easy to use as that trusty binoculars, Dobs make taking the leap into telescopes easier.  

The best part about a Dobsonian telescope is their cost.  When looking through the search results or window shopping at the camera store, the prices of a new scope can be overwhelming.  Luckily nothing beats the cost for size that we get with a Dob.

The best Dobsonian we are looking for is between 6” and 10”.  The sweet spot is 8”.  

Here are a few to consider and this one is our favorite.  Look at all that light gathering!

Part IV: Keeping Realistic Expectations

This was the hardest part to swallow for us when we first started out.  No one told us what to expect when we finally dialed into the Andromeda Galaxy. 

“It’s huge!” they said, excitedly twisting the knobs to get it dead center in the glass.  “Look at this beauty!”

Excitedly we put our eyes to the eyepiece.  All we could see was a smudge.  A smudge with a bright center.  “Uh, yeah. That’s cool.” we said, probably unassuredly.  We expected bright colors, sweeping spiral arms, a giant star-filled center.

But we weren’t deterred, so we kept looking.  Through our own, smaller telescope at home we could barely tell what Andromeda looked like.  Saturn was a blob with ears.  Why didn’t they look like the pictures!?

It took a few nights for us to realize what was happening.  We were spoiled.  We thought the bold beautiful colors that the Hubble Space Telescope saw would be there in our own telescope.  We didn’t realize that once our night vision finally woke up we could start to pick out the tiniest details, glimpse the faintest colors.  

We learned that night that astronomy was a very slow hobby but the payoffs were amazing.

What You’ll Really See Through The Telescope

Even with the largest light bucket we can buy, the objects we observe won’t always look like what can be found in the books.  

This is because astrophotography, through long exposures and dedication, complex filters and advanced camera sensors, can produce the amazing full color detailed images we are used to seeing.  Images the human eye can’t see.

Because cameras can keep the exposure going for longer, it allows more and more light to hit the sensor, building on the image. Our eyes can’t do this.  But don’t get discouraged!  We have options.

The more you spend time behind the lens, the more you will learn to see.  In addition to this, we can add observational filters to our eyepieces.  These can do anything from reduce the effects of light pollution to only allow certain wavelengths (colors) through the focuser tube.  

While not miracle makers, filters will make a big difference in what we see.

Part V: The Next Steps To Amateur Astronomy 

Now that we have a road map for success, where do we go now? 

Star Parties and Astronomy Clubs

Things are a little messy in the days of the pandemic making most gatherings impossible.  So what has that done for Astronomy clubs?

Most clubs are still providing outreach programs.  You can find your local club here.  However, due to mandates and requirements surrounding the pandemic, it is best to check the website of your local club. 

As things begin to open up, star parties are where its at.  Star parties provide folks who are interested in astronomy a chance to speak with a seasoned veteran using telescopes that might be bigger or more advanced than what we have at home.

Nothing teaches better than doing, so we’re excited for star parties to come back when its safe to do so.

Reach out to your local astronomy club for more information.

Astrophotography

We mentioned above that astrophotography is the most difficult part of this hobby.  So frankly, we aren’t going to talk about it here.  Not even a little.  Don’t look at it.  Stay away from the light.

You still want those super sweet pics, don’t you? 

Begrudgingly, we will send you here.  But we warned you!

But wait, there’s more!

We’ve only scratched the surface.  There is SO much to learn.  From filters to mounts, fancy eyepieces, and eventually, to the big leagues of astrophotography, we have a LOT to learn before we become expert modern astronomers. 

The next rabbit hole we’re going to send you down is eyepieces.  

Most telescopes these days come with a good set of beginner glass, but what if your first scope was a hand-me-down?  Or a quality used scope?  Will new eyepieces still fit the old telescope?  Find Out Here.

TL;DR

Astronomy can be overwhelming, especially if we get a telescope but don’t know how to use it.  To make the most of this hobby, modern astronomers should learn the sky first.  The easiest way is to just look up.  Getting familiar with the stars that are the brightest will act as guideposts for fainter and hard-to-find objects.  

Before spending the big bucks and buying a telescope, using binoculars is an easy way to get familiar with harder-to-spot objects.  Once we are comfortable with the sky, we suggest buying a Dobsonian reflector.  They are the easiest to get started with, but there are a lot of options.  

And finally, it is vital to remember that the objects we might see through our scope are not going to look like the pictures we see in magazines or online.  By keeping expectations realistic, going slow, and getting familiar with the sky, we can enjoy astronomy without some of the headaches that can happen to the unprepared.

Now get out there and chase some constellations.