Getting Started with Stargazing: Advice from a Professional Astronomer

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

There are few things more peaceful and relaxing than a night under the stars. Through the holidays, many people head away from the bright city lights to go camping. They revel in the dark skies, spangled with myriad stars.

As a child, I loved such trips, and they helped cement my passion for the night sky, and for all things space.

One of my great joys as an astronomer is sharing the night sky with people. There is something wondrous about helping people stare at the cosmos through a telescope, getting their first glimpses of the universe’s many wonders. But we can also share and enjoy the night sky just with our own eyes—pointing out the constellations and the planets or discovering the joys of watching meteor showers.

It is easy to be bitten by the astronomy bug, and a common question I get asked is, “How can I get more into stargazing?”. Here are ways to get started in this fascinating and timeless hobby that won’t break the bank.

Learning the night sky

A good place to start if you’re a budding astronomer is to learn your way around the night sky. When I was young, this involved getting hold of a planisphere (a star map, you can make your own here), or a good reference book.

Today, there are countless good apps to help you find your way around the night sky.

A great example of such an app is Stellarium—a planetarium program allowing you to view the night sky from the comfort of your room or to plan an evening’s observation ahead of schedule.

To memorize the night sky, you can try star hopping. Pick out a bright, famous, easy-to-find constellation, and use it as a guide to help you identify the constellations around it.

Learn one constellation per week, and within a year, you’ll be familiar with most of the constellations visible from your location.

Let’s use Orion as an example. The slider below shows images from Stellarium, with Orion riding high in the sky on a summer’s evening. I’ve added arrows to show how you can use Orion to hop around the summer sky.

To learn the constellations around Orion, your task is relatively straightforward. Head out on a clear, dark summer’s night, and find Orion high to the north. The three stars of Orion’s belt are a fantastic signpost to Orion’s neighbors.

If you follow the line of the belt upwards and to the right, you come to Sirius—the brightest star in the night sky, and the brightest star in Canis Major, the big hunting dog. Carry the line on and curve to the left as you go,

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