What to look for:
Let's start with 2 or 3 of each type of object. Our astronomy science kits and science books will help expand on these when you're ready. Try our Star Wheel star-finder to find stars and constellations year round. There is so much to know that it's better to start out with some easy and interesting objects. First learn to locate the constellations that contain the objects you want to see. This will help you locate the objects more easily. Can you locate the teapot asterism in Sagittarius just by looking up in the sky? It's actually very easy, once you know what to look for. When you find the object with your telescope, study it over and over again, and try to notice the subtle details through your telescope. Don't bother going out when the moon is anything more than a crescent, it casts too much light and will either drown out the object, or reduce the amount of detail you can see. You have a window of 4 or 5 good days of viewing per moon cycle, the best being when it's a new moon (no reflection of the sun). Draw a picture of the object you see through your telescope, just like Messier, Halley and other astronomers did!

The following objects can be located on our Star Wheel star-finder to help you find stars and constellations all year round. Take it outside with you, it's easy to use. As the Earth changes seasons, constellations come and go throughout the year.

Globular Clusters: A globular cluster is about the most beautiful object in the sky and they are often described as snow balls. It's the retirement home of the Milky Way galaxy, consisting of a dense cluster of stars that are thought to be about as old as the Milky Way galaxy itself! A globular cluster is a collection of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of very old dying stars, such as red giants and white dwarfs. The stars you can see through your telescope are mostly red giants. Red giants are much larger than our sun and much older. Billions of years from now, our sun will turn into a red giant as it uses up its nuclear fuel. Our Milky Way contains roughly 200 globular clusters, and a third of them can be found in just 3 of the 88 constellations: Scorpius, Sagittarius, and Ophiuchus.

• M79 (Messier 79) is a globular cluster in the Lepus constellation. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780. M79 is at a distance of about 41,000 light years away from Earth and 60,000 light years away from the Galactic Center. A medium concentration of stars; pretty large, extremely rich, very well resolved with very faint stars.
• M3 (Messier 3) will rise above the eastern horizon in March. It's a medium concentration of stars; extremely bright and very large. Has almost a 3 dimensional look through a telescope, a very remarkable object! Contains 45,000 stars and extends 220 light years across at a distance from Earth of 48,000 light years and is approximately 6.5 billion years old.
• NGC 2419 NGC means New General Catalog. Also named the Intergalactic Wanderer. It's a high concentration of stars; pretty bright, pretty large, and slightly elongated. At 300,000 light years from Earth, this globular is more distant than the Magellanic Clouds and seemingly adrift in intergalactic space, thus the name.

Open Clusters: These contain dozens to thousands of stars, are located in the disc of the Milky Way, and have no particular shape. They aren't densely packed together like globular clusters are, and contain much younger stars.

• M35 (Messier 35) - is an open cluster in the Gemini constellation. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745 and independently discovered by John Bevis before 1750. About 200 stars, detached, no concentration of stars; moderate range in brightness; very large. With an opera glass, like a piece of frosted silver over which a twinkling light is playing. A big, splashy stellar jewel box. Extends 23 light years across, is 2,800 light years from Earth, and is 110 million years old.
• M37 (Messier 37) - is the richest open cluster in the Auriga constellation. It was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654. Composed of 150 stars; detached, weak concentration of stars; small range in brightness. A magnificent object, the whole field being strewed as it were with sparkling gold dust. Has a dark area near the center. Brightest star is a magnitude 9.2, a topaz jewel surrounded by a pear-shaped cluster of scintillating diamonds. At a distance of 3,600 light years, this 300 million year old open cluster extends 24 light years across.
• M44 (Messier 44) - also called Praesepe or the Beehive Cluster contains 50 stars; detached, weak concentration of stars, moderate brightness. Galileo noticed 36 stars. Looks faint and fuzzy to the naked eye. Extends 17 light years across and 580 light years from Earth. Age is 660 million years!

Nebulae: A nebula is a cloud of gas and microscopic dust in space. The easiest and biggest are the H II regions which are nebulae that contain hydrogen gas which is ionized (the hydrogen atom loses its electron). The gas in these nebulae are hot, ionized, and glowing due to the ultra-violet radiation from nearby stars. Nebulae are spectacular and best seen from dark sky locations.

• M42 (Messier 42) The Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,270 light years and is the closest region of star formation to Earth. The Orion nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula.
• M78 (Messier 78) This nebula is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included by Charles Messier in his catalog of comet-like objects that same year. M78 is the brightest diffuse reflection nebula of a group of nebulae that include NGC 2064, NGC 2067 and NGC 2071. This group belongs to the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is about 1,600 light years distant from Earth. M78 is easily found in small telescopes as a hazy patch and involves two stars of 10th magnitude. These two stars, HD 38563A and HD 38563B, are responsible for making the cloud of dust in M78 visible by reflecting their light. About 45 variable stars of the T Tauri type, young stars still in the process of formation as well as some 17 Herbig-Haro objects are known in M78.
• M97 (Messier 97) also called the Owl Nebula - The Owl Nebula is a planetary nebula in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781. M97 is regarded as one of the more complex of the planetaries. The 16th magnitude central star has about 0.7 solar masses and the nebula itself about 0.15 solar masses. The nebula formed roughly 6,000 years ago. The nebula gets it name due to the appearance of owl-like "eyes" when view through a large (>200 mm) telescope under dark sky conditions with the aid of a so-called "nebula filter." The "eyes" are also easily visible through photographs taken of the nebula.

Planets: The only planets that will reveal any amount of detail are Jupiter and Saturn. Everything else looks like a point of light or a blurry dot. However, it's still cool to be able to say you've located Venus, Mercury, or Mars in the sky. Even our strongest consumer telescopes will not see Pluto due to its small size and distance! Planets move very quickly across the sky, so you'll have to adjust your telescope as you view the planets to keep them in your field of vision.

• Mars - Mars is making its closest approach to Earth since 2005. If you have a telescope, you’ll want to make the most of the opportunity in December and January. It’ll be a long time before we get another chance this good. Not often do we get a close look at Mars. It’s a small world to begin with, about half the diameter of Earth, and it spends most of the time far away on the other side of its orbit from us. Mars usually ranks as one of the most disappointing objects in amateur astronomy — a tiny, featureless orange blob. The only time we get a decent look at its surface markings, clouds, dust storms, and changing polar caps is for a couple of months every two years, when Mars comes closest (around its date of opposition). This time around, Mars maxes out at 15.9 arcseconds when it passes closest to Earth on December 18th. That's nowhere near its record-breaking apparent diameter of 25.1" in August 2003. Even so, it's bigger than Mars will appear again until 2016. But Mars is never easy to study visually; every bit of what you see is a hard-won prize. Don’t expect impressive views unless you have a large scope with first-rate optics in perfect collimation (optical alignment). Even then the limiting factor is usually Earth’s atmosphere. Studying the planets means spending a lot of time watching and waiting for glimpses of detail when the seeing steadies. Moreover, the longer you watch, the more familiar with the scene and the better trained your eye becomes. Plan to spend lots of time at the eyepiece.
• Saturn - There are lots of great objects in the evening sky now, but the real action is in the early morning. Venus, many times brighter still, dominates the eastern sky. Meanwhile, Saturn, often considered the most beautiful telescopic sight in the heavens, rides at its highest in the south. Saturn is twice as bright as nearby Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, but it's significantly fainter than it's been for most of the last decade. That's because its rings are now showing nearly edge-on to Earth. At their maximum tilt (in 2003), the rings outshone the planet itself by a fair margin. Saturn's moons are actually easier to see now that the rings are less obtrusive. Titan, the brightest by far at eighth magnitude, is usually easy to recognize. The best way to distinguish Saturn's moons from background stars is to observe which "stars" follow Saturn as it moves across the sky. Those will be the moons!
• Mercury - You may spot it first January 8, when it shines at magnitude -0.9. Through a telescope, Mercury will show a disk 90-percent illuminated because the planet has just rounded its orbit's far side. A thumbnail crescent Moon joins Mercury January 9. The Moon, which is less than 36 hours old then, hangs 6 degrees above the southwestern horizon half an hour after sunset. In fact, spotting Mercury, at only 4 degrees altitude, may be easier. Look for the pair in binoculars - Mercury appears as a bright star in a twilit sky, with a thin crescent Moon 3 degrees above and to its left. Mercury sets 80 minutes after the Sun January 15. The planet fades slightly to magnitude -0.8 and shows a 77-percent-lit disk; this shrinks to 53 percent a week later. On January 21, Mercury reaches its greatest angle east of the Sun and remains above the horizon 90 minutes after sunset. On subsequent evenings, Mercury quickly loses altitude and drops back into the Sun's glare. The planet fades as it diminishes to a crescent. On January 25, Mercury glows at magnitude -0.4.
• Venus & Jupiter - Venus traverses the constellation Ophiuchus from January 6 to 21. The planet is receding from Earth and lies 124 million miles away at month's end. A telescope shows the planet's phase growing from 77 to 84 percent lit, but Venus' diameter hovers between 13" and 14" all month. Watch for the nice pre-dawn grouping of Venus and the crescent Moon January 5. Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius, lies 7 degrees away. By midmonth, Jupiter appears low in the southeast an hour before sunrise. The giant planet becomes an obvious sight a week later, when it rises into a darker sky. On January 21, Venus and Jupiter stand 11 degrees apart. During the next 12 days the gap between them diminishes, leading to their spectacular conjunction February 1. That morning, Jupiter lies 562 million miles away, or more than 4.5 times farther than Venus. Even so, a telescope will show Jupiter's 33" width is nearly 3 times the size of Venus' disk. The reason, of course, is that Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, is 12 times Venus' size. Venus passes about 2 degrees from the Lagoon nebula (M8) and less than 1 degree from the Trifid (M20) nebulae January 24 and 25. Jupiter stands less than 1 degree north of the globular cluster M22.