Becoming a better observer

By James

This is my third year as an astronomical observer, and I’ve decided the time has come to kick off a few projects aimed at improving my practical skills.

Observing open clusters.

The Astronomical League have some fantastic material and programs that are available online, even to non-members. I wish British astronomical organisations were more like their American counterparts (a discussion for another day).

Anyway, the program that’s caught my imagination is the Open Cluster Observing Program which provides a list of 125 objects from various catalogues, most of which I’ve never encountered. I’ve decided the best, and most obvious, place to start is the Basic program which states the following requirements.

  • Observe any 100 of the 125 open clusters on the provided list.

  • Sketch any 25 of the 100 open clusters that you observe.

  • Classify all 100 observed clusters under the Trumpler classification system.

I don’t believe there’s a deadline. I’m only doing this for my education and entertainment, but I’d like to try and complete the program this year. So the plan is to start with some of the open clusters listed for Taurus, Orion and Monoceros before they’re gone in Spring.

Why open clusters? Simple really, they’re one of the few features of the deep sky that are reasonably visible in the suburban night sky, and some of them are quite spectacular.

Choosing my equipment.

It’s suggested that using the same telescope with a limited range of magnifications gives the observer a better appreciation of the differences between these clusters.

I’d estimate that there are about 30 clusters on the list the I’m going to struggle with because of their low altitude. That’s not good since I need to view 100 out of 125 to complete the basic program. I’m going to have to move about to bag a few of the tricky ones.

A small telescope like my SW Explorer 130P on an Alt-Az mount is relatively portable, and I don’t have anything with more light grasp, so that’s the one I’m going to use. I’m going try and stick to 50 and 100 times magnification depending on the actual object.

For the drawings I’ll try and stick to high altitude objects and switch to my heavier equatorial mount. It’ll be much easier to track them whilst I draw.

What am I hoping to gain?

I’m not a member of the Astronomical League (yet), so I’m not eligible for any awards, so that’s not the focus here. If you’re anything like me you tend to find your target, give it a minute or so, and move on to the next. For me getting past this behaviour is the main point of the project.

You remember they said observe? Well that means making notes with descriptions as well as the classification. It’s very hard to describe or draw an object accurately without really studying it in the eye piece.

I think programs like this one will make me a much better observer, and possibly one day an astronomer.