The basic equipment for observing the sky is cheap. An easy chair, a small star map, binoculars and a lot of patience. The brightest stars form constellations. Some of them, like the Big Dipper and Orion, can be used to find the other constellations.
Once you can find your way in the sky, you can start looking for faint nebula and galaxies with telescopes. This needs al lot of experience. Small groups of stars lead you to deep sky objects. These are objects outside our solar system. But remember: always start with "the big picture".
Some constellations and objects are shown in the images below.
Click
on the thumbnails for a larger image. 
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The constellation of Cassiopeia near the celestial north pole, is an easy to recognise pattern in the sky. Its 5 brightest stars form the letters "M"or "W". It is partially located in the dense star clouds of the Milky Way and contains a few nice galactic star clusters. The image was made with the CCD-camera and a lens of a normal camera. This combination is nice for small constellations. |
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The constellation of Lyra contains the 5th brightest star, Vega. The star is at 26 light years. Here we can find the famous Ring nebula M57, the Double Double Star which has a distance of 1.100 light years and M56 a nice globular star cluster. For this image a 200mm lens was used. |
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The constellation of Taurus, the Bull, contains the 15th star in brightness: the beautiful orange coloured Aldebaran. This star is at 68 light years. Near Aldebaran we can find the Hyades, a very nice galactic star cluster. An excellent object in binoculars. Two of the most famous objects in the sky, are the Pleiades, M45, and M1, the Crab nebula, which is a supernova remnant. The explosion was seen and recorded by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. |
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