In the first part of this series, I covered some of the basics of a self-instructed crash course on amateur astronomy, where I researched the hobby of stargazing. This is the account of the second — and more exciting — phase: Actual sky-watching experience in the field.

Literally.

After spending a couple of weeks looking at the night sky through field glasses in front of my downtown Toronto condominium, I was going to head out to the country, away from the Big Smoke's blanket of light pollution, and use a real astronomer's telescope to see what I could see.

The hardware

First things first: I needed a scope.

Celestron's NexStar 6 SE has an on-board computer and remote that can help amateur astronomers locate some 40,000 objects stored in its database.

For that, I relied on a borrowed Celestron Sky Scout. I know next to nothing about telescopes, so I let Celestron know this and they lent me what amounted to an idiot-proof model, the NexStar 6 SE. It was easy to set up and came with an on-board computer and remote that could dial in some 40,000 objects stored in its database at the touch of just a few buttons. At $1,250, it might be a bit more expensive than what many beginner astronomers would want to pay for their first scope — myself included — so I jumped at the opportunity to try it out for a few weeks.

As I prepared for my first stargazing trip (which, in addition to assembling my borrowed telescope, involved packing food, some hot chocolate, a folding chair, a flashlight, and a notebook and pen), I looked up a few helpful online resources. The first was weather.ca. This popular weather forecast website has a section dedicated to stargazing, including up-to-the-hour sky conditions and brief write-ups on celestial objects of interest. Another site with good viewing advice was that of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. But from a "what-can-I-see-tonight?" perspective, the best site I found was skynews.ca, which provides succinct descriptions of the highlights of the evening sky on a week-by-week basis.

Out in the field

I'd lucked into a warm February evening on my first night out; it was one degree above zero with only a light breeze. When I left town, the sky appeared perfectly clear, and once I got outside the city, I looked up through the windshield and saw a sky full of stars and a bright quarter moon.

In this image taken by astronomy expert Terence Dickinson, co-author of The Backyard Astronomer's Guide, a stargazer scans the heavens with a small portable telescope.

However, when I looked up again 15 minutes later, the only thing I could see was the glow of the moon behind a bank of clouds that had rolled in seemingly from out of nowhere. As I continued on, parts of the sky cleared and then clouded over again. I supposed unpredictable cloud cover was a hazard all astronomers face on a regular basis. I just hoped that there would be a few clear periods during the three hours I planned to spend at my destination.

As for my elected stargazing area, it turned out to be closed. I'd selected a conservation area about 70 minutes outside the city by car, but the park's gates were locked tight.

So I drove around until I found a little-used side road that bordered an empty field. With fingers crossed that no farmers would come out of nearby houses and shoot me for trespassing, I set up my gear under what happily turned out to be an almost entirely clear, star-filled sky.

The heavens revealed

Now before I get into what I was able to see, I'd like to bond with readers who have always wanted to look at the sky through a telescope but never have. What have you thought you might observe?

If you're like me, you probably somehow hoped that among the many white, sparkling dots, you'd find a few more electrifying sights, like hints of the colourful nebulas, streaking comets and globular star clusters pictured in astronomy books.

These spectacular astral phenomena were not visible.

At the time, I wasn't sure if it was because I didn't know where to look, I didn't have a powerful enough scope or that these objects simply weren't in the sky that night. I later discovered that most of the incredible images we see in books and on television are only visible through extended exposure photography, or require much higher magnification telescopes. And, in many cases, they depend on good timing (i.e., knowing when a particular sight will appear in the sky) and a bit of luck. But that doesn't mean it's not worth getting out of the city for a look at a darker sky.

An image of the Orion Nebula, captured by astronomy expert Terence Dickinson.

The first thing I saw upon peering through my fancy scope was a sky full of stars. Lots and lots of stars. I'd point the scope at a random star, look through the eyepiece and see scores of stars surrounding it that had been invisible to my unaided eye. As I repeated this experiment, training the scope on both bright and dim stars, I was always amazed at just how much more there was to see than I could make out with my naked eye. The immense depth of the sky, which I'd always known had existed but somehow never really felt, was suddenly plainly obvious.

I spent about an hour just selecting random stars before beginning to use the NexStar's automatic guidance feature. I used the moon as an orientation point for the scope before setting it to find the planets Venus, Mercury and Saturn, as well as specific constellations. It worked like a charm — much easier, I'd imagine, than it would be for a beginner like me to use a star chart and a compass to try to track down specific things in the heavens.

The planets were colourful balls slightly larger than the stars around them, the stars motionless circles of bright light.

I also gazed at the moon for about 15 minutes. The details of the moon that I'd seen earlier through binoculars were impressive, but nothing compared to what I saw with the telescope, which showed ragged ridges and vein-like lines sprawling away from larger craters.

After a couple of hours, I began to pack up. Despite the relatively warm weather and two pairs of wool socks, my toes were numb — a consequence of sitting still for so long. My fingers, which had been more active pressing buttons on the scope's remote and twisting the focus ring, were faring a little better.

I closed the trunk, took one last look at the sky and realized I'd observed only a tiny fraction of even the stars viewable to my naked eye. I'd just scratched the surface. To quote Billy Bob Thornton's character in the film Armageddon, "it's a big-ass sky."

So I went out twice more with the telescope before I had to return it to Celestron. The second time was an experience similar to the first, while the third trip was less fruitful thanks to variable clouds that blotted out big chunks of sky throughout the night.

Celestial reflections

As I drove home for the third and final time, I reflected on what I'd discovered about astronomy in the month that I'd spent studying it.

The most important lesson, it seemed to me, was this: Have patience and plan ahead, because astronomy is one big waiting game.

First you have to wait for a suitable night, and then, during that night, you may have to wait for clouds to pass by. Patience is also required to see specific objects. Want to see Halley's Comet? Better find something to occupy yourself with for the next 54 years — it won't be visible again until 2061. Indeed, viewable objects change by the year, season, night and even during the course of the night. The moon, for example, was setting around 11 p.m. ET on the nights I went out to gaze. If I missed it, I had to cool my heels until the next evening.

In the end, I enjoyed my month of astronomy, and I imagine that I'll find myself looking up at the sky with more than casual interest for the rest of my life — particularly when I hear about special viewing opportunities for meteor showers, comets, eclipses and other rare celestial sights.

As an amateur, will I buy a telescope? Probably not, unless I one day find myself living in the country, or, at the very least, the remote suburbs where I can get a decent view without too much interference from light pollution. However, I suspect that at some point I will purchase a good pair of binoculars for casual viewing within the city and on trips.

Regardless, I'm just happy that I took the time to pay attention to the sky. When it comes to space, there's an inverse relationship between body and mind: physically, I've never felt smaller, but I feel as though my understanding of the universe in which we live has expanded exponentially.

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