The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Morris (red white and royal blue hardcover TXT) 📕

will conclude with a completely different but still related topic. You already own a telescope: your eyes.

Astronomy with the naked eye

It’s a common myth that you need a telescope to be an astronomer. Beginners often hear it when they ask for advice on how to approach their newly discovered hobby. You can indeed see much more with a telescope than with the naked eye or binoculars. But basically, you don’t need a telescope to study the sky. In other words, getting started in astronomy is actually free.

Beginners are best advised to simply use their eyes to familiarize themselves with the firmament—preferably with a star chart. Even if you buy a telescope later, it is essential to roughly know the sky. Either way, once you get started with the instruments Mother Nature has given you, you’ll be delighted to discover what you can detect with the naked eye.

Now, before you immediately run outdoors, here are a few things to consider if you want to enjoy stargazing. First, plan time for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and second, choose a location that is as dark as possible. Any light pollution is more than annoying when stargazing. For example, unless you want to target the moon itself, it can be quite distracting. Viewing is better during a new moon, or if Luna shows up only as a narrow crescent.

A starry night is a breathtaking experience, and you will be amazed at what is presented to the unaided eye. Star clusters like the Pleiades are easy to spot, as is the star-forming region of the Orion Nebula. The band of the Milky Way can be seen from any dark location. With a simple star guide or planisphere, you’ll know right away where to look, but the objects are so conspicuous that they can be found without any accessories. Up to this point, astronomy doesn’t have to cost you a dime.

Once you have acquired a taste for astronomy, the desire for a pair of binoculars or a telescope will probably arise, and these instruments do not have to be expensive. If you choose carefully, your first piece of equipment can give you many years of pleasure and later serve as a reserve.

The night sky holds many wonders that can be perceived even without any instrument. According to theory, under perfect conditions, humans can recognize everything from a magnitude of +6.0 in the firmament—assuming good eyesight, of course. This means that you can capture 9,000 stars at once with a single glance. But if it’s dark enough all around, much more will show up—there are galaxies, planets, and star clusters, if you only know where to look. If you have a telescope at your disposal, possibly equipped with suitable filters, you can look thousands of light-years away—and just as far back into the past. A fascinating idea.

You need to give your eyes time to get used to the darkness, as I have already mentioned. Likewise, I’ve said you should avoid light pollution and cloudy skies. But you should also avoid alcoholic beverages, for best stargazing results, no matter how cold it may be outside—alcohol impairs the ability of your eyes to adapt, as does nicotine.

The best time to start observing is around the time of a new moon, when the satellite does not outshine all the treasures around it. I also recommend an elevated location, or at least a point where there are no houses, mountains, or trees blocking the horizon.

Once you have arrived at the best possible location, you will naturally want to perceive as much as conditions allow. Keep in mind that stars and planets are much easier to detect than galaxies and nebulae, even if they are of the same magnitude—the latter objects are scattered over a larger area of the sky and are thus much more diffuse than the concentrated points of light.

As the seasons progress, the constellations will gradually become familiar to you. Depending on whether it’s winter, spring, summer, or fall, constellations and asterisms such as Orion, the Big Dipper, the Summer Triangle, or the Great Square of Pegasus will wander through your field of vision. They also always provide useful reference points from which to make your way around the firmament.

The top three destinations

Orion Nebula (M42)

Right ascension: 05h 35m 17s

Declination: -05° 23′ 28″

Best season: Winter

Constellation: Orion

Magnitude: +4.0

If you look below the three stars of Orion’s belt, you will recognize the Orion Nebula as a pale spot in a clear sky without light pollution. It is a powerful gas cloud in which new stars are formed. It is 1,344 light-years away and can be seen even from the outskirts of a city.

Pleiades (M45)

Right ascension: 03h 47m 24s

Declination: +24° 07′ 00”

Best season: Winter

Constellation: Taurus

Magnitude: +1.6

In winter and spring, the Pleiades star cluster is impossible to miss. One can distinguish six or seven stars arranged in a pattern similar to that of the Big Dipper. The group is easily visible to the naked eye even with moderate light pollution.

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Right ascension: 00h 42m 44s

Declination: +41° 16′ 09″

Best season: Autumn

Constellation: Andromeda

Magnitude: +3.5

With a distance of 2.5 million light-years, the Andromeda Galaxy—also called Messier 31—is the most distant object we can perceive with unaided eyes. The environment should be sufficiently dark. Then you can see the galaxy on moonless nights in the constellation of the same name.

Technical jargon

Right ascension (RA)

In the sky, RA corresponds to the longitude on Earth, with the directions west and east. It is given in hours, minutes, and seconds because we see different parts of the sky during the night due to the Earth’s rotation.

Declination (Dec)

Dec indicates how high an object will rise in the firmament. Just like latitude, declination has north and south. The units are degrees, minutes of arc, and seconds of arc, each subdivided into increments of 60.

Magnitude

Magnitude is also called apparent brightness and indicates how bright an object appears when seen from Earth. The scale often causes confusion at first because the lower the number, the brighter an object is. For example, a