The Recreational Astronomer

By Jon Stewart-Taylor

The Recreational Astronomer is my series on various aspects of amateur astronomy which i'd like to share. The series is generally about doing rather than knowing: it's intended to help you get more out of observing the night sky. I hope it will help you enjoy your time looking at the skies, whether with unided eyes or using binoculars or a telescope.

Like all good web sites, this is under construction, and it'll take me a while to fully populate. The current and intended articles include:

• What's a Recreational Astronomer?
• Starting Right in Astronomy
• Unaided-eye Astronomy (also known as "naked-eye")
• Observing Meteor Showers
• Binocular Astronomy
• Buying a telescope
• Eyepieces
• Finding Things to Observe:
  • Sky Charts
  • Finding Things with a Telescope or Binoculars
  • Telrad® unit-power finders
  • Finders
• Star hopping
• Family Astronomy
  • In Theory
  • In Practice
• Library
• Foul Weather Astronomy

© 2006 Jon Stewart-Taylor

The Recreational Astronomer had its origins in a series of articles for the NOVAC Newsletter in the early 1990s.