Page updated: 17 June 2010
In the Beginning...
 
All who point a telescope skywards to commence the exploration of the universe ask themselves the same question: What is there to bring into view?
Although there is a huge amount of observable objects it is not immediately obvious exactly which ones can be observed. When I began observing late in 2000 I experienced the same thing. What can really be seen?

Books, maps, software and other resources will help. Using these tools it becomes a lot clearer what is visible and where it's located. However, only knowing where an object is, is not enough. An object needs to be found too! Once found it appears to move from the field of view suprisingly fast. All of the sudden earth's rotation doesn't seem to be that slow anymore. Well, how do you keep an object in the field of view, which magnification is the optimum one, what is it you are looking at, and... what will you observe next?
As I learned to control my first telescope, an ETX-125EC, finding and tracking objects became easy. Starhopping while using low magnifications I found the brightest, best known objects a map or chart indicated. I quickly desired to see more than familiar objects night after night. Saturn and Messier 42 are beautiful, but to spend hours and hours staring at these objects every time... I longed to see more than the Moon and a few planets, more than a few Messiers and a handful of bright NGC's. Pointing the telescope in the right direction was no longer a challenge. In addition, I did not like to waste time under a starry sky looking for objects. Scrolling through a book to find out what's visible and where it's located quickly becomes a drag. Also, books and starcharts seldomly specify whether or not an object is within reach of your equipment.

Instead of flipping through the pages of a book while in the field, to find out what more there is to see I began to compile lists at home. Just a few objects that can be observed on a given night. These lists were short and did not contain more information than the names of the objects and the constellations they are in. Using these shorts lists I was able to observe a lot more in a single night. I knew which objects were positioned favorably, where they were located and I was quite sure they were visible in my telescope. Still, this left a lot of room for improvement. These lists were short and quickly worked through, which made it necessary to again reach for a book to look for something new. Also, some objects did not fall within reach of my equipment as they were too faint, too small or too large. Again and again I returned to books and charts, looking for something I had not observed before.



As of early 2001 I knew how to use the GOTO system of the telescope to my full advantage. Thanks to this I was able to bring objects into view quickly, thereby completing observing lists faster. This made me wonder even more often what else there is to observe. Too frequently I observed an object only to think: "Oh, that one again, that's familiar..." The database of an Autostar controller of my telescope was not of help though. Without further information it's impossible to determine which of the 7000+ NGC objects in the database are within reach of your scope and where these objects are located.
Books like Burnham's Celestial Handbook and a few simpler guides enable you, at home, to look for objects you can expect to be able to observe. Thanks to this documentation the database of a controller can be used to greater effect, but this still goes only for deepsky objects. By then I also enjoyed observing carbon and double stars. These objects are not part of a GOTO controller's database.

Fortunately Meade's Autostar controlled telescopes have the option to use tours: Simple textfiles which can be uploaded to the controller. Instead of writing paper lists I could compile objets in a file and use it to control the telescope. Plenty of cloudy nights ensured the amount of tours grew quickly. From then on, whenever I went out observing I was able to see more than ever before. I planned what to observe in advance, taking into account the position of objects and the limits of my telescope. I did not add objects that are too faint, small or large. Instead of observing only a handful of objects, to then again browse through a book to find something else, I now regularly observed around fifty different objects per night. Planned in advance and nearly everything I planned fell within reach of my equipment.
 
Dedicated Planning
 
From 2001 to 2004 I wrote tours for all constellations visible from the Netherlands. This dedicated collection of data ensured I was able to observe a large variety of objects every clear night. Late in 2003 I began recording my observations.
Although the tours enabled me to observe a lot in a relatively short timespan I continued to wonder what it was I observed, or more precisely: what is was I was about to observe using the tours. My tours did contain data of objects, like size and magnitude, but reading this information on the 16 character scroll line of an Autostar controller is far from practical. The idea grew to write guides containing information about the objects in the tours. By doing so I could use the controller to bring objects into view and have a guide with relevant information on the side. This allowed me to know in advance how bright or large an objects is and thereby knowing what the optimum magnification would be. By adding images as well it's possible to know with certainty you are looking at exact the right spot. This makes visually picking up very faint objects with certainty much easier.
 
Observation Guides
 
In 2004 I began writing guides for all of my tours in MS Word. Adding information from Burnham's Celestial Handbook and Sky Atlas 2000.0 Companion as well as data from the internet. I created guides that sorted objects by category in every constellation for which I had already written tours. Carbon stars, double stars, open and globular clusters, nebulae, dark nebulae, planetary nebulae, supernova remnants, galaxies, asterisms and other. Having this information available on a clipboard with matching tours in the telescope I observed around 150 objects in a single observing session. With vast majority of these objects being ones I had never seen before. To this day this has not really changed. Every time I'm out under the stars I attempt to view as many new objects as possible. Thanks to the guides I know in advance what to expect of an object and whether anything special is visible. In addition, it's nice to have extra data available of the objects I'm observing, like the distance in light years, age or objects in the vicinity.
 
Expanding & Improving
 
Ever since I first used the program AstroPlanner in early 2007 the number objects in my observations guides has grown exponentially. Same goes for the information I was able to find about these objects. Instead of adding only the most beautiful or brightest objects I began writing guides containing all of the objects that are within reach of my telescope. Including the relatively faint DSO's and close double stars. Keeping in mind my plans to acquire a telescope with a larger aperature I wrote these guides for DSO's up to and including mag. 14.0, carbonstar up to mag. 11.0 and double stars up to mag. 14.0, for which the components had a minimum separation of 0.7". In October 2008 in Sutherland, South Africa, observing with a Celestron 11" CPC I found this bar not to be raised too high: Many galaxies up to mag. 14 were clearly visible. Although the great conditions in Sutherland were a contributing factor, it does indicate what is possible. I chose not to restrict my guides to objects in well known lists and catalogs. The Messiers or the objects in the Herschel 400 will come by eventually. Actually, I'm simply adding all of the Herschel objects.
By now I have written a reasonable amount of guides for 'southern' constellations. For these constellation the same thing goes as for the 'northern': The more objects you add, the more information you run into. Due to the enormous amount of objects that can be observed worldwide with amateur telescopes I expect it to take years to complete the guides. Every guide creates new observing opportunities. At the same time, every observation give new insight or inspiration to keep improving them. Enough to keep me busy for years to come.
 
When I observe I use a dedicated plan. For several years already I have taken my own approach to making these plans.
The text below explains.