What can I see with a telescope?
What can I see with a telescope?
The moon is an excellent object to view in almost all types of telescope. It is also an ideal first object to look at with your new scope since it is bright and quite large. If you have more than one eyepiece start with the lowest power (that will be the one with the largest number such as 20mm). While looking at the moon you will probably notice a couple of things. First the image will drift out of view due to the earth's rotation. Second, the image will move opposite to the direction you move your scope.
Once you are familiar with locating the moon and adjusting your telescope you should try to locate a planet. This will require looking in an astronomy magazine or a publication such as the RASC Observers Handbook to determine which planets (if any) are in the sky that night. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are especially good targets.
As you gain confidence there are many other objects that can be viewed with even the smallest telescopes: double stars, globular clusters, galaxies and many varieties of nebulae.
Developed by Stewart Attlesey