Beginner Objects for Star Party

I am taking some people to a dark sky sight to do some observing, but have very little experience myself. Is there a list somewhere of like the easiest 10 or 12 DSO's to find in the current summer skies? Unfortunately Orion and Andromeda (M31,33,etc) are not up when I will be out, because I know those well. I have a star chart and software so just the names of the objects will do. Also, I use a 10" Dob.

Thanks -

Ryan O

I assume your in the States. Here is a list of bright favorites: M13, M57, M27, M11, M26, M17, M8 and M22.

None of these objects are difficult to find with a good starchart and patience. I recommend going to www.skymaps.com and downloading July's free starmap for the Northern Hemisphere. It is a terrific aid in finding the brighter DSOs.

Clear skies.

Ryan,

Assuming you are going out about now--
and will be looking for easy to find things--

In addition to those mentioned elsewhere, you should have a few interesting craters on the moon. Venus. M57, M4, Lagoon, Trifid, and a few other objects in Sagitarius, and M13. Alberio, and Alcor-Mizar.

These are fairly easy to find objects, and will impress your frinds.

Alex

The www.skymaps.com link was great - I cross-referenced that with the suggestions made by the replies and headed for the mountains.

Unfortunately, 26 miles of the LA Crest Highway and 5300' was still not enough to get out of this humid haze that has been plaguing Southern CA for the last few weeks. Nebulas were out of the question, galaxies were really only interesting to me (M81/2 were SO faint, M51 barely visible also), and Venus at high mag looked like it was under a puddle of water. Plus, the LA glow was to the south, right where all the cool Sag/Sco objects are.

That said, it is true that you can impress people with the simplest things. M13 was a hit, but the biggest pleaser was pushing the mag to 750X, putting the crescent moon above the field of view, and letting it rotate through. They kept asking me to reset this! It was pretty cool to see how fast the Earth turns at such high mag.

I ended up finding 8 or 9 Messier objects, and called it a night at 11pm - guess I gotta wait until September or so for the slime to move off the LA Basin.