Did Santa bring you a new telescope for Christmas? Or did you beat Kris Kringle to the punch? However you came up with a telescope I want you to get as much out of it as possible and fall in love with your new window to the universe. Don't let it wind up in the closest as an auxiliary coat rack!

You might be tempted to put off using your new telescope until springtime but don't make that a big mistake. Wintertime stargazing is fantastic! Bundle up and prepare to be dazzled.

My first advice is to BE PATIENT! Too many Christmas telescopes wind up neglected because of bad technique. 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, it really helps to get to know your way around the Butler sky, at least a little bit. You don't have to know every single constellation up there, but whatever you can do to familiarize yourself with January evening skies will help.

One resource I can suggest is the absolutely fantastic Sky Guide App for your smartphone, tablet, or even an Apple phone. With Sky Guide, all you have to do is hold your phone toward the sky and it'll show you what constellations you're viewing. It also has articles and a celestial calendar. It'll only set you back $2.99. You can also upgrade and get some really cool tools. There's also Stellarium, a great planetarium/star map software for your smartphone, laptop, computer, or tablet. You'll love it and it's absolutely free! Check it out at www.stellarium.org.

Another essential thing to remember is to make sure your telescope is set up outside and on solid ground. Pointing your telescope out a window never works.

Especially this time of year, ensure your telescope and any eyepieces you're using sit outside for at least a half-hour before you use them. They need to acclimate to colder outside temperatures; otherwise, whatever you gaze at could be a little fuzzy and you could become discouraged.

It's also a good idea to avoid viewing telescope targets near the horizon. The Earth's atmospheric layer is thicker there, and targets will,definitely appear fuzzy.

When folks reach out to me about their new telescope, I often hear that they can't find anything through their scope. Some even have trouble getting the moon in their scope. You can eliminate that problem easily. You just need to sync your small finder scope with the main telescope.

All telescopes come with either a small sighter scope with either crosshair or a small laser. 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 telescope after you get it centered in the finder scope or device.

It's best to get the finder synced using a fixed land object before going skyward. Look for a prominent object like a church steeple or water tower along the horizon. Put wide-field/low-magnification eyepiece in your main telescope and slew your telescope along the horizon until you find a landmark. Once you do, look through your finder scope and see if the landmark is centered. If not, most finder scopes have screws or knobs to adjust their aim.

Once you do that you're good to go. Get the moon, planet, or whatever you want to observe centered in the finderscope, and you should be able to see it in the main scope.

Now for some easy starter targets.

The Moon

This week is a great time to view the moon as it'll be just past being full.

Your best views will be right around what's known as the terminator, or the line between the sunlit and darkened part of the moon. That's where you can get the best views of craters and mountains because of the longer shadows, and you can gain perspective of the heights of crater walls and mountains.

Jupiter and Mars

Jupiter starts January evenings in the high south-southwestern heavens, and Mars hangs high and bright in the southeast with its unmistakable ruddy hue.

Both planets are good telescope targets, especially Jupiter, with cloud bands striping the huge planet, and its four brightest moons appearing as faint stars dancing around Jupiter from night to night.

Seeing details on Mars with a telescope is a little more challenging, but you may see some darker patches that are valleys and basins.

Pleiades Star Cluster

This is the best star cluster in the sky. With the naked eye, it looks like a mini Big Dipper in the upper half of the eastern sky.

With 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 a great telescope target. It's nearly visible to the naked eye.

Aim your scope very high in the northern sky, just to the upper right of the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia the Queen, as you can see on the diagram. It's one of my 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 in the eastern sky.

Through your scope, you'll see a glob of gas with a bit of a greenish tint that's a giant cloud of hydrogen gas around 1,500 light-years away. Within it, you should be able to see up to four faint and very young stars arranged in a trapezoid.

One more important telescope tip I can give you is that 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 change from night to night, hour to hour, and even minute to minute. That's why you should take long continuous looks. Enjoy that new telescope!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of "Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations," published by Adventure Publications. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.