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

My first word of advice is BE PATIENT! Too many Christmas telescopes wind up in a closet or serve as an extra coat rack because of overblown expectations followed by disappointment.

Take your time with your new scope 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 Butler night sky. That new telescope of yours won't magically download celestial navigation in your head.

Some telescopes have built-in navigation systems that can help but nothing beats getting to know the constellations and where they reside and how they move. There are many books, software programs and websites that can help you make the stars your old friends!

I know you want to get out and use your telescope right away though, so I want to suggest some easy targets for your initial 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 a half-hour before you use it. It has to acclimate to colder outside temperatures, otherwise whatever you gaze at could be a little fuzzy.

Also, make sure your small finder telescope or other finding device like a laser that comes with some scopes is in sync with the main telescope. Check the instructions because these devices vary from scope to scope.

You should be able to see the moon or whatever your target is in the main scope with low magnification after you get it centered in the finder scope. It's best to get the finder and main scope synced up using a fixed land object.

Another very important thing is to initially use a low magnification, wide field eyepiece when you're searching for a sky target.

Once you find your target you can go to higher magnification eyepieces, but you will notice diminishing clarity with increasing magnification. This is normal. All telescopes have their limits.

Now for some easy starter targets.

The Moon

Right now, the moon is out of the evening sky, but it will be back in the second week of January as a growing crescent in the western sky.

That will be a great time to actually view the moon because you can really see a lot of details like craters and mountains and the longer shadows, which will really give you perspective about how high some of these mountains are.

Your best views will be right around what's known as the terminator, the line between the sunlit and darkened part of the moon. Full or near full moons are tough to look at because the brightness and the high angle of the sun make seeing details on the surface a lot more difficult.

Jupiter

Currently Jupiter is lighting up the western sky and it's very easy to see. It's the brightest starlike object in the evening sky.

You should be able to resolve the disk of the giant planet and easily see up to four of Jupiters brighter moons that circle it in periods of two to 17 days. If it's clear enough and the winds are calm, both near the ground and aloft, you may also see some of Jupiter's cloud bands made of ammonia, methane and other gases.

Pleiades Star Cluster

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 over 400 light years away. One light-year equals almost six trillion miles!

The Perseus and Double Star Cluster

This is real eye candy! It's nearly visible to the naked eye.

Aim your scope very high in the sky between the constellation Cassiopeia the Queen and Perseus the Hero as you can see on the diagram.

It's one of my very favorites as you'll see two distinct clusters of stars side by side. They're both 7,000 light years away. I know you'll love what you see!

The Orion Nebula

This is simply wondrous through the eyepiece of your telescope. You can easily find it with the naked eye as a fuzzy middle star in the three stars that make up the sword of Orion the Hunter.

Through your scope you'll see a glob of gas with a little bit of a greenish tint to it. It's a giant cloud of hydrogen gas around 1,500 light years away.

Within it you should be able to see four faint stars arranged in a trapezoid. They are very young stars less than a half a million years old that were born out of this nebula. These stars are producing so much ultraviolet radiation that they're causing the surrounding nebula that they were born in to glow like a neon light.

The Andromeda Galaxy

The next door neighbor galaxy to our Milky Way is nearly overhead in the constellation Andromeda the Princess. Check out my December star map on my website www.lynchandthe-stars.com

for details that will help you find it.Oh, and one more thing. The clarity of whatever you're viewing can vary because of subtle differences in Earth's atmosphere.High winds in the upper atmosphere can have a definite blurring effect that can vary from night to night, hour to hour and even minute to minute. That's the reason you should take long continuous looks through the telescope at whatever you're viewing, so you can catch those extra sweet moments of clarity.Atmospheric blurring due to winds is referred to by amateur astronomers as “bad seeing.” With the naked eye it's difficult to detect bad seeing conditions. The sky can look as clear as a bell but the view through the scope may not be.One indication of possible bad seeing conditions is how much the stars are twinkling. The more they twinkle the more bad seeing you have. If everything looks fuzzy in your telescope, try looking another night. Again when using telescopes you need to stay patient.Celestial Hugging this Week: Catch the waning crescent moon and the bright planet Venus right next to each other in the predawn eastern sky.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 website www.lynchandthestars.com