Your first night at the telescopes

Most people arrive at their first club night expecting to be quizzed on star names. Nobody will. A member stays at each telescope, points it and tells you what you are looking at.

Wear far more than you think: you stand still for two hours and the field is always colder than town. Give your eyes twenty minutes to adjust to the dark, and keep your phone in your pocket, because one bright screen resets them.

Start with the easy targets: the Moon if it is up, a planet, the Pleiades in binoculars. Galaxies are faint grey smudges at first; they get better the longer you look.