Observing tonight

I had my first proper night at attempting observing tonight. I was only using a pair of 10x50 binoculars, but they were handy enough.

In the first 5 minutes or so, I was looking at the some objects in the South (possibly SSW) region when I seen a meteorid. It only lasted a split second but I'm sure I could see a streak of darker material behind it. I'm not sure if this was the trail of light or smoke...but it was definetly darker.

I then seen another object move through the dipper. Not sure if it was a satellite or what.

Theres a lot to be learned! With using 10x50's, what are you limited to seeing?

Sean

I went out again there for an hour and got a good view of Saturn, Deneb, Vega and Altair for the first time knowing what I was looking at

with 10x50 you definitely learn the entire living night sky! Also comets, colored double-stars, star clusters, ... Only a telescope is needed for viewing planet's disks and the faint deepsky objects

enjoy!

Hi Sean,
welcome!

Well if you saw flck of light streaking across the sky and burning up
leaving a trail behind it it was a meteor.
Then, a Meteor-ite is one that actually hits or land on the ground.
Either way,
it's always cool to see Meteor and more so if it leaves a trail.
Keep an eye out during the year for Meteor 'Showers'.

The object you say you saw move through the Diper was most likely a Satellite.
On any given night you can see several and there is a great resource on the
net for predicting satellite passes for your exact location called
Heavens Above.
Also, most good planetarium software packages will have detailed
and updatable satellite and spacecraft orbits.
These are fun to predict and go observe,
no better ones than 'Iridium Flares'
Basically these are communications sattelites that have large
solar arays and have a tendency catch and reflect the suns light
back to earth, sort of like a huge mirror in space, and
they 'flare up' in Magnitude (brightness).
These are for me the best satellites to watch out for.
(here is a time lapse pic of one
www.frankryanjr.com/iridium_flare_the_burren_5th_may_08.jpg )

As for the 10 x 50's.
You are going about this all the right way.
Learning your way around the constellaions and objects with binos
is a right of passage and someday if you ever buy a
'go to' scope you will at least know where to point it
if the power go's on you!

Happy observing!