One hint, the key to finding things with a Dob is to use a good atlas that isn’t too detailed. I would suggest something like Tirion’s Sky Atlas 2000.0, especially if you can find the first edition which isn’t as detailed and doesn’t go as deep as the second. Use a good pair of 7×50 binoculars to complement your finderscope. A good catalog or observing guide will let you know if your object of interest is even visible in your scope. You can waste a lot of time chasing after faint fuzzies that are just beyond the reach of your instrument. Be aware of your scope’s magnitude and resolution limits, and the visual characteristics of your target. A 6″ Dobsonian is a very capable instrument, particularly for rich-field work, yet very easy to handle; a perfect optimization of performance and convenience. I wouldn’t mind having one myself.

Locate the field where your target object is hiding using the atlas. Mentally mark the locations of the naked-eye stars on the chart as close as possible to your object of interest, and familiarize yourself with the area, both on the chart and visually.

Now that you know where the object is located relative to the field stars, use your binoculars to zoom in on the area to pick out fainter stars that may not be on the atlas or not visible to the eye that will guide you to your target. When you’re starting off, stick to brighter objects that will show up in the binoculars, like the Orion Nebula or the Andromeda Galaxy. But even if you can’t see the target, use stars as pointers and guides to zero in on the spot where the chart shows the object. Memorize star arrangements by seeing them as geometrical shapes and pointers and paths,

Now switch to your finderscope, which will show you the same field, more or less, as the binocs, but it will be upside down because it doesn’t have the erecting prisms like the binocular. Take a moment to re-memorize the star patterns now that they are reversed. Also keep in mind that unlike the binocs with their erecting prisms, the scope will do everything backwards: when you point to the left, the field will appear to shift to the right. Learn to think in terms of N,S,E,W, instead of up, down, left, right.

The binoculars are very important, because they bridge the gap between naked eye and chart to the telescope optics.

Fainter objects and bigger scopes will require more detailed charts, but all of the M objects and hundreds more of the brighter NGC DSOs are within reach of your scope. It is perfect for a beginner, and will give spectacular views of the brighter, more extended objects which will not be easy to appreciate with a large aperture. Your Dob will never become obsolete, either, because it can serve as a finder for a much larger scope, you can use it the way you use the binocs, as a portable finder to help guide a big reflector.

As for not having enough time…I can’t help you there. That one gets us all in the end.

I have a 6″ dobsonian mount that never makes it outdoors anymore. I can make out half a dozen Jovian moons with it, but have never really been able to find any of the M objects. I never really got the hang of the azimuth stuff, so I mostly just point and shoot at bright objects or the moon using filters.

I’ve considered selling, but its not worth enough to bother and I keep thinking one day I’ll figure out how to search the sky with it. Just not enough time anymore.

I’m selling because I have to wear glasses now and my night vision has gone to hell. Also the trees around my observatory have grown to where I’m looking through a hole in the sky. That and my job is sucking the life out of me.

I have plenty of reference books on my shelf but, thanks!

Why are you selling? That would be a great scope for extragalactic supernova patrol. I have one of these that I’ve never used…Are you interested?

http://www.amazon.com/Supernova-Search-Charts-Handbook-Pack/dp/0521267218#customerReviews

Are you interested?

I collect star atlases and catalogues, paper ones. I value them as examples of the uranographer’s and printer’s art. The online and digital atlases are great if you can print out one sheet at a time to help you track down a faint fuzzy, but my scope is so small (4″ refractor) and my sky so light-polluted I have little use for them. I did have a free copy of “Earth-Centered Universe” until it expired a few months ago. I finally mastered the GUI, but I’m too lazy to learn another one as well as too cheap to pay for another.

I have Becvar’s Atlas Coeli, and his Borealis, Australis and Eclipticalis atlases, and the AAVSO Variable Star Atlas. (These are all Epoch 1950.0)

I also have both editions of Sky Atlas 2000.0, both editions of Uranometria 2000.0, the Herald-Bobroff Atlas, the Millennium Star Atlas, and the Great Atlas of the Sky by Piotr Brych. All the other print atlases now available are for beginners, and it is unlikely any more detailed or deep atlases will be printed from now on. The digital stuff has pretty much replaced them.

These are all out of print now except U2K2, driven off by the online works which are interactive and customizable, and probably much more useful for observers. So get yours while its still available. It is a masterpiece, both as a scientific and an artistic work.

Luddite that I am, I’m still in love with the smell of the ink, the paper and the glue. I don’t even have a clock drive on my scope, much less a Go To computer mount. This new German Atlas may be the last paper atlas to be printed. I doubt if it will ever spawn a second printing, much less a second edition.

My preference, for best all-around atlas, and the one to own if you only want one of them for both desk and field use, is Uranometria 2000.0 2nd Ed and its accompanying catalogue, which came on the market about the turn of the 21st century. (The “2000.0″ refers to the coordinate grid which is precessed to Epoch 2000.0.)

Over 30,000 non-stellar objects, more than three times the number of any other atlas.
25,895 galaxies
671 galaxy clusters
1,617 open clusters, including those in the Magellanic Clouds
170 globular clusters, including both Milky Way and Magellanic Cloud objects
14 star clouds
377 bright nebulae
367 dark nebulae
1,144 planetary nebulae
260 radio sources
35 X-ray sources
280,035 stars to visual 9.75 magnitude which is about what you will see in a 50mm finder scope. Stars are continuously tapered to create a more realistic perspective.
220 double page, (18 x 12 inches) charts at a scale of 1.85 cm per degree of declination.

The real difference between paper and digital is editing. These atlases are compiled and assembled with observational and object criteria in mind, not just by letting software beat on a database, mining a catalogue without human supervision. For example, here is the vendor’s essay on U2K2′s open cluster listing.

Uranometria 2000.0’s Open Cluster Database
This atlas plots 1,617 open clusters, including those in the Magellanic
Clouds. They are shown as dotted open circles, with objects larger than 5′
drawn to scale on the main charts.
True open clusters are relatively young objects scattered throughout
the disk of the Galaxy. A familiar example is the Pleiades, found on Chart
78. These objects are also known as Galactic clusters, since all but those
nearest the Earth are found near the plane of our Galaxy (Chart 8 shows
twenty-seven). Over time many objects cataloged as clusters have been
proven to be just chance groupings or apparent groupings of unrelated
stars. Many of these objects have NGC or IC designations and are well
established in the literature. We have chosen to include them as clusters
here. The companion DSFG provides specifics.
In the very youngest cases, the remnants of the gas from which they
formed are visible as nebulae in the surrounding field. In fact, a small
number (78) of open clusters share a single designation with their nebulae.
An example is IC 1396 on Chart 19, which is listed as both an open
cluster and a bright nebula in the respective sections, has two separate
symbols on the chart, and is listed twice in the Index.
The number of stars in these objects ranges from only a few to thousands.
In appearance they vary from rich, compact, easily distinguished
objects, to a few stars so loosely grouped that they are hardly discernible
from the surrounding star field. Many of the latter require experimentation
with different apertures and magnifications to be seen. Small telescope
users will probably be able to view a larger percentage of open
clusters than other types of deep-sky objects.
The principal source used for data on these objects is the book Star
Clusters by Brent Archinal and Steven Hynes, in press, to be published by
Willmann-Bell. This atlas uses a subset of that data which was selected by
a review of the entire catalog by direct inspection of the DSS images by
DSFG co-author, Murray Cragin. His criteria were general visibility and
the likelihood that the object could be seen by amateurs.

http://www.willbell.com/atlas/index.htm

The paper atlases, of course, are provided with extensive bibliographies, footnotes and cross-references which allow the user to explore the provenance and history of the more obscure objects, an absolute essential because astronomical data is scattered in so many different, often contradictory sources, where errors and corrections have been dutifully copied, or not, to subsequent editions–or to digital databases. This is always the case in a rapidly evolving science expanding into an ever-expanding frontier of knowledge. The digital atlases usually leave this supporting and cautionary documentation off and give an impression of seamless integrity and completeness to the data which it really does not possess. For example, even the venerable NGC and IC catalogues contain thousands of objects that may have not been observed visually since the 19th century! Simply printing them on a map with a descriptive symbol proves nothing. The numbers spit out so confidently by the software exhibit a legitimacy, heterogeneity and uniformity that is really not there. Bad data is better than none at all, but you have to really know what you’re doing, and develop an intuition for the data and the sources. “GIGO”, as the pencil-necked geeks love to smugly remind us.

Damn, I hate the Digital Age.

Looks nice! If you also wanted to add something electronic to your library, there’s this:

Deep sky Astronomy Software

In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work with the guy who wrote it. Nice fellow, good programmer. I don’t really do any observing anymore, so I can’t claim to use it…but it always impressed me when I saw it.