Sky Atlas 2000

[rujaimi]

Hello there
I'm new to astronomy, i have a 5" telescope and i bought as well an sky atlas 2000 deluxe edition, field edition, when i opened it i was dazzled with the amount of info and how they describe it, i thought its much easier to read.

How i can make good use of it given that I'm still a beginner.

thanks

[stevec]

I love my SkyAtlas 2000, but can see that it may be a bit daunting to a beginner.

I've found that the stars plotted in it match up pretty close with what you can see through a decent finderscope, or a pair of 40mm-42mm binoculars.

One idea..... and something I did when I was still learning....
I made some custom overlays (like the clear 'scale' and Telrad overlay that comes supplied with the atlas)
Simply run an empty 'pocket' through a laminator, to give you a clear sheet of plastic. Then draw circles on it with a permanent marker, to match the field of view through finderscopes, binoculars, and I even made a few to match the eyepiece field of view of my fave eyepieces at the time.
I cut these out in the shape of a magnifying glass to make them easy to hold.
They helped me immensely with star-hopping

[starhunter55]

great idea..