The days of star hoping to find objects is becoming a fading craft of astronomy with StarryNight and Goto scopes.

When comet 73P was visible on my second night of observing I decided to locate fragments B & C by star hoping and it wasn’t as easy as it used to be. I forgot how trained I became using the finder eyepiece and the sky in the field of view was not as familiar as it used to be. I did it, but it took longer than expected.

Not that I don’t mind being spoiled with Goto, but I do have a harder time remembering where that certain object I viewed was in the sky days later without looking it up.