I know that many of you received new telescopes under the Christmas tree, and I hope you're having a lot of fun with them.

If this is your first telescope, let me give you some helpful hints. First and foremost, no matter how chilly it is you have to set your telescope up outside.

Aiming it through a window, even an open window, is never a good idea. The warm air currents from your house will really mess up your scope's ability to give you a clear view.

Another very important rule is to let it sit outside so the lenses and/or mirrors can acclimate to the cooler temperatures. Let your scope and all of the eyepieces you plan to use sit outside for a good half-hour before use. This really makes a difference.

One more important bit of advice I can pass on to you is to use your widest aperture, lowest power eyepiece when you're first aiming at any telescope target.

You'll find the object you're looking for a whole lot easier when you use a low power eyepiece because it offers you a wider field of view.

Once you get the target in the view of your telescope, you can use higher magnification eyepieces to really get a good look. Remember, though, that with any telescope the higher magnification views will always be a little fuzzier than the low power views. There's nothing wrong with your telescope. That's just the way it is.

There's a whole lot of universe out there to gaze at. Of course, there's the moon and the planets. There's also the wonderful Orion Nebula just below and to the right of the three famous belt stars of Orion, and there's the Pleiades star cluster in the high southeastern evening sky here in Butler.

But if you really want to get your winter socks knocked off, check out the Perseus Double Cluster. I guarantee it will take your breath away when you first see it through your scope, and what's really nice is that even small telescopes or binoculars do it proud!

The Perseus Double Cluster is within the boundaries of the constellation Perseus the Hero, a constellation that I'll feature next month around Valentine's Day because its mythological tale is quite a love story.

I think the best way to find the Perseus Double Cluster is to use the much brighter constellation, Cassiopeia the Queen, the one that looks like a giant "W" in the sky.

In the early evening, face directly toward the eastern horizon and go straight up to the overhead zenith. You'll see the "W" of Cassiopeia on its side a little to the left of the zenith.

Scan your telescope with a low power eyepiece about 7 degrees, or less than the width of your fist at arm's length, just to the lower right of the sideways "W."

You shouldn't have all that much trouble finding the Double Cluster. In fact, if you're lucky enough to be looking for it in the dark country skies you might even see it with the naked eye as a misty patch of light within the Milky Way band.

When you first get it in your sights, I guarantee it will blow your mind! You can see two distinct open clusters, with some of the stars having reddish, sapphire blue, and topaz tinges to them.

Not only is it wonderful eye candy through the eyepiece of your telescope, but the Perseus Double Cluster is astronomically amazing as well.

First of all, both of these side by side open clusters are large families of about 300 young stars each, not much more than 3 million to 5 million years old, all formed together in the same gigantic cloud of hydrogen gas and dust.

Some of these stars are more than 50,000 times as powerful as our sun.

Both of these clusters are about 7,000 light years away, with just one light year equaling nearly 6 trillion miles!

They're so far away that we're seeing them as they looked at about 5000 B.C. It's taken that long for the light from these clusters to reach us.

The much brighter Pleiades Star Cluster, not all that far away in the high southeastern sky, is only about 410 light years away. If you could magically move the Perseus Double Cluster so it's as close to us as the Pleiades cluster, the double cluster would fill over a quarter of the northern sky and many of its stars would be the brightest in the night sky!

One more thing to ponder as you gaze at the wonderfulness of the Perseus Double Cluster is that it's moving in our direction at a speed over 47,000 miles an hour!

This Wednesday morning the moon and the bright reddish star, Antares, will be practically touching in the predawn sky.

Antares will be only half of a degree to the upper left of the crescent moon. Physically, though, Antares is about 604 light years farther away than the moon.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.