How to get into the hobby of amateur astronomy

One of the questions I was recently asked was what is the best way to get into the hobby of amateur astronomy, I thought that the answer to this might be useful to some other people to so I decided to make a post on it. The best way in my opinion to get into amateur astronomy is to begin by looking at the night sky with just your eyes and learning the names of the constellations and learning how to navigate the night sky. While doing this make sure you give yourself about 20 minutes outside to let your eyes dark adapt to give you the best views, looking at the sky with just your eyes at first is the best way to begin and one of the most common mistakes for people starting the hobby is that they go out and buy a big and expensive telescope when they don't know anything about the constellations and how to navigate the night sky. The other thing that is useful for beginning amateur astronomy is to talk to other people about it this can be done in one of two ways either on forums or by joining an astronomy club in your local area. If possible join an astronomy club as you can learn a lot about astronomy, you get to look through other peoples telescopes and you can make some great friends but if thee isn't a club near you the next best option is to join an astronomy forum. I personally am a member of both www.astrononyforum.net and www.astronomyshed.co.uk and they both have nice friendly members who have taught me a lot of what I know about astronomy. I hope you find this post helpful if you have any questions feel free to contact me at alex.wetton10@yahoo.co.uk or leave a comment below.