If you found a new telescope under your Christmas tree, congratulations. You’re about to get up close and personal with your universe.

My first word of advice is to be patient. Too many Christmas telescopes wind up in a closet or serve as a clothes rack in the laundry room because of overblown expectations followed by disappointment. Take your time with your new telescope and thoroughly read the instructions — even you guys out there like me who don’t think it’s necessary.

First and foremost, get to know your way around the sky. That new telescope of yours won’t magically give you knowledge of where things are in the heavens. There are some telescopes with navigation systems that can help, but you still have to somewhat learn your way around the constellations and brighter stars.

There are many star maps, software programs and books out there to help you find your way around. There’s one such book out called “Pennsylvania Starwatch” that’s pretty good. (I happen to know the author.)

I know the reality is that you want to use your scope right away and I want to suggest some easy targets for your heavenly enjoyment.

There are some really important things you need to do before you begin. First, make sure your telescope sits outside on solid ground for at least 30 minutes before you use it. It has to acclimate to colder winter temperatures; otherwise the image in your scope may be fuzzy.

Also make sure your small finder telescope is in sync with the main telescope. Check the instructions because finder scopes vary greatly from scope to scope. You should be able to see the moon, or whatever your target is, in the main telescope after you get it centered in the wide-field, low-magnification finder scope.

Another important thing to remember is to initially use a low-power, wide-field eyepiece when you’re in search of a sky target. Once you find your target you can go to higher and higher magnification eyepieces. You will notice a gradual diminishing of clarity with increasing magnification. This is normal. All telescopes have their limits.

Now for some easy targets:

Right now, we have a nearly full moon, already up in the east in the early evening.Later on this week, we’ll have a full moon and for the most part, it’s a giant nuisance for telescoping. Not only does it throw all kinds of extra light into the sky, which washes out fainter telescope targets, but it’s almost too bright to look at through the scope.Your best time to look at the moon is when it’s down to a half or crescent shape, when you can see more details in the mountains and craters.

This is the best star cluster in the sky. It’s easily seen with the naked eye in the mid- to high-eastern sky. Through even a small telescope you can see dozens of very young stars, more than 2,000 trillion miles away.

This is real eye candy. It’s nearly visible to the naked eye. Aim your scope very high in the northeastern sky, just to the lower right of the sideways “W” that makes up the constellation Cassiopeia.You’ll see two clusters of stars side by side more than 7,000 light years away.

It’s nearly overhead in the constellation Andromeda the Princess. See the December star map on my Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.With even a small telescope you can see the oval shape of the next-door neighbor to our Milky Way galaxy, 2.5 million light years away.

This is another easy target that you can see with the naked eye as a fuzzy star in the sword of the constellation Orion the Hunter.See the diagram. You can see a greenish glob of hydrogen gas and dust that’s around 1,500 light years away. Within it, you’ll see four faint stars arranged in a trapezoid that are very young stars, about 10 million to 20 million years old, born out of this nebula.Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the new book, “Pennsylvania Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.