How should i get into star gazing/ astronomy?

For sometime now ive been wanting to do this but when it came time to get things toghter ...it made my head hurt with all this infomation thrown at me. Reflectors,refractors, mm lens, electronic eye pieces, range, all this stuff is making my head spin.what would be a nice easy way to get into star gazing/location before i spend money on a good telescope. where can i get a good star chart for my area and how should i go about doing it? anything is helpful|||I used binoculars for two years. In that time, I was able to learn the sky and research and save my money for the type of scope I wanted. Keep in mind that it is a HOBBY for amateurs. The idea is to have FUN with it. Learn those aspects of it that interest you and are enjoyable. Forget the rest.|||All you need is your eyes, curiosity, and imagination. If all the terminology about telescopes confuses you right now, just sit or lie back and learn how to observe and develop the patience and attention to detail that good observation skills require. Binoculars and telescopes help, but they do not replace your brain, and learning how to use your brain.|||classes .|||First check out this website - it's free and tells you a lot of information about the sky that is easy to understand.





http://www.skyviewcafe.com/








Then try to log on to a rent-a-scope website like Slooh. I think the website is www.slooh.com.





The beauty of this is you get access to professional telescope (you even get to control it for short periods which you can book in advance, but you also see the images the others are looking at) and you get to chat online to other astronomers and ask for their advice. There is also a radio station. Like with all astronomy though your biggest drawback is clouds, this affects most astronomers so the first and most important thing to get used to is the disappointment of knowing there's an amazing celestrial event happening which you have been looking forward to all day, you go out to loook (or log on to a remote telescope like slooh) and find out it's cloudy and you won't get to see it.





Don't go out and buy a scope before you even know anything about astronomy. I strongly recommend your first step is to check the sky view cafe website first and get to know the constellations, then whenver it's clear go out and try to learn the names of the constellations and watch them for a year as they rise and set at different times through the night and watch how they change over the seasons, without that appreciation you'll have difficulty understanding right assention and declanation and offsetting a telescope for the time of day etc. Like with any subject don't dive right in start with baby steps and build up. You wouldn't walk into a physics lecture on your first day knowing nothing about physics and ask the teacher to explain general relativity would you? Let all the reflector/refractor stuff go over your head and just get to know and love the night sky with your normal eyes. Then when you have seen enough and you feel you want a pair of cheap binoculars (10x50s) try to pick some up off a car boot or garage sale, then just pan round the sky with them, but don't do that until you know what you're looking at. Only then should you start worrying about getting a telescope.





Good luck and clear skies.