Hey y'all I just started in this hobby and so far loving it. I purchased a 114mm telescope with an EQ mount and just finished my first stargazing session.
Saw the TARF star from my balcony window for around 30mins until the rest of my building ended up obscuring it.
I do live pretty close to the equator, at 3.6 S in a city called Fortaleza (https://maps.app.goo.gl/Qz5ttmgNhXmv1Xqz6)
My question here is, I see a lot of resources for northern hemisphere, but I am pretty sure that those cannot be watched from where I live (please correct me if I am wrong)
My main question is, are there any resources for southern hemisphere sightseeing that might be easy for a newbie like me to follow? I know about the 110 things to see with a telescope book, but idk if any of them can be seen from where I live
by WrongdoerIcy5871
3 Comments
At close to the equator the far northern or southern stuff will be low in the sky, but you will still be able to see nearly everything in the sky (except the North Star) if you have clear horizons and can get away from light pollution. I’m at 33N and I’ve observed some of the more northern “Southern Hemisphere” objects.
The Southern skies are amazing! If you can get away from light pollution ( Fortaleza is pretty big as I remember, dark beaches maybe) Look for the Southern Cross, the Milky Way itself, with bright bands and dark clouds, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Alpha Centauri, Andromeda in December.
On my desktop / laptop I use the full version of Stellarium (free, open source). It has a tool called WUT (What’s Up Tonight) that is beyond handy and super easy to use – and it can suggest targets specific to your location and date for planning purposes.
On my phone / tablet I use SkySafari 7 Plus (~$US10 varies with sales etc). It has a well-curated list of targets for the night, specific to your location and date. It’s super easy to use and probably the best money you can spend in amateur astronomy (probably better value than any telescope). It also lets you read about what you are seeing – which is very cool.
I think software is the way to go these days, assuming you have at least a smartphone to hand.
A slightly more advanced feature of both these packages is that you can create a local artificial horizon for your common viewing sites. That will add buildings, trees, hills etc so you can check whether objects close to the horizon will really be visible or obstructed.
If you get really obsessed with optimising observation planning you can get into something like Deep Sky Planner. It’s a more technical tool, but it has exceptional capabilities with vast merged astronomical catalogues, a vector local horizon model it can use to advise when objects will really rise above the tree line and set behind the house etc, plus a solid model for visibility taking into account light pollution, seeing conditions, your telescope equipment etc .. so you can sort a target list by difficulty which is very powerful. It costs real $ though, of course.