Telescope Reviews: Re: Observing is more fun with a plan in mind!

Fine! But that reinforces that original poster's underlying point rather than contradicting it. Whether you set out to check off 10 objects or to study one object in detail, you still have a plan either way.

In practice, everybody who devotes much time to this hobby ends up doing a fair amount of both -- studying objects in detail and also surveying a wide range of objects. One might even say that those are flip sides of the same coin.

Celestial objects fall into hierarchies. When you look at a galaxy in detail, you are surveying individual features inside the galaxy -- though ideally still keeping the galaxy as a whole in mind, too. And in particular, when you check off star clusters and nebulae on a list (and noting some details about each, I hope), you are studying in detail the larger object that they're part of, namely our own Milky Way galaxy. And whenever you look at any celestial object, you are studying the night sky as a whole.

Since you haven't spent much time at this hobby yet, you probably don't appreciate the true value of observing objects in quantity. For one thing, most objects that are visible in any instrument show relatively little detail in that instrument -- typically not much more than size, shape, orientation, brightness, and degree of concentration. Your binoculars will show you a hundred galaxies or so under dark skies, but most of them won't bear much more than 1 or 2 minutes of scrutiny.

For another, celestial objects are very varied. That's particularly true of the objects that binoculars show best -- open star clusters and large nebulae (both bright and dark). To really understand one particular open cluster, you have to know it in the context of open clusters as a class. And the only way to understand open clusters as a class is to view lots of them.

But getting back to the original point, the opposite of setting out with a plan is going out and observing whatever comes to mind. Everybody needs to do that, too, at least sometimes. Otherwise, you lose all spontaneity, and you may end up trapped in and narrowed by your specific goals.

The hazard of going out and observing whatever comes to mind is that all too often the same old things come to mind. And far worse, you tend to view the same old objects the same old way -- in which case you inevitably get bored sooner or later.

In stargazing as in all other things, balance is the key to satisfaction. And the proper balance varies greatly from one individual to another. And from one time to another.

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Tony Flanders

First and foremost observing love: naked eye.
Second, binoculars.
Last but not least, telescopes.
And I sometimes dabble with cameras.

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