British Astronomical Association

Supporting amateur astronomers since 1890

Tutorials

These tutorials and guides offer helpful step by step advice on equipment and observational techniques. You can search by topic and difficulty level, from starting out to advanced. For those new to astronomy and observation, we recommend our starting out page as a guide to this section.

What telescope should I give a child?
2018 Oct 13 - Starting Out
David Arditti

A Guide to AstroImageJ Differential Photometry
2018 Sep 22 - Advanced
Richard Lee

8
Filters for visual observing of the Moon and planets
2018 Sep 9 - Intermediate
Martin Griffiths

The Pole Star
2018 Aug 13 - Starting Out
Paul G Abel

The visual observation of comets
2018 Jun 16 - Intermediate
Jonathan Shanklin

STEVE
2018 Jun 4 - Intermediate
Sandra Brantingham

Noctilucent Clouds – a beginners’ guide
2018 May 26 - Starting Out
Sandra Brantingham

Star hopping
2018 May 5 - Starting Out
David Basey

Which way is up?
2018 Apr 14 - Starting Out
Stewart Moore

The brightness of stars
2018 Mar 24 - Starting Out
David Basey

Finding the way – part 2
2018 Mar 4 - Starting Out
David Basey

Finding the way – part 1
2018 Feb 10 - Starting Out
David Basey

The Motion of the Planets
2018 Jan 17 - Starting Out
Paul G Abel

Figure 1. The Quickmap home page in its default setting.
QUICKMAP – Latest Version Now Live
2018 Jan 3 - Advanced
Barry FitzGerald

Light pollution – penetrating the veil
2017 Dec 30 - Starting Out
Bob Mizon

Patterns in the sky
2017 Dec 10 - Starting Out
David Basey

Figure 1
The turning sky
2017 Nov 1 - Starting Out
David Basey

Figure 02
A short historical account and guide to regular observation of Uranus
2017 Oct 7 - Intermediate
Paul G. Abel & Damian Peach

Astronomical Seeing Part 1.
2017 Sep 21 - Starting Out
Paul G Abel

An ‘off the shelf’ plastic runoff shed observatory
2017 Aug 28 - Intermediate
Martin Mobberley