I hope you’ve had the best holiday season of your life and that Santa brought you everything you wanted on your list, plus a few wonderful surprises.

If you received that telescope you always wanted, you’ll be able to get a little closer, at least visually, to that big universe over your head.

Be patient though. You’re in it for the long term.

There are several kinds of telescopes out there for your stargazing enjoyment, but for all of them there are definite do’s and don’ts.

If you’re like me, I know you hate instructions, but trust me, following the basic rules of telescope viewing can make such a difference. Here are my suggestions.

Use your telescope outside

Poking your telescope out of the window just doesn’t work. The waves of heat leaving your house will interfere with what you’re looking at.

It’s also very important to set up your telescope outside and let it sit for a good 30 to 45 minutes before you start using it, especially in cooler weather. Make sure your eyepieces are out there as well.

This is important because the lenses and/or mirrors in your scope have to acclimate to the cooler temperatures. If you don’t allow cooling time for your scope you will very likely see blurred images.

Set up on firm ground

Avoid setting up your scope on any kind of wooden deck. No matter how well it’s built or how solid it is, vibrations from your movements will jiggle the scope just enough to drive you crazy.

It’s best to set up your telescope on solid ground.

Adjust your finder

As you’re setting up your telescope, make sure the small finder telescope mounted on the side of your main telescope is properly aligned. This is important because if it’s out of alignment, finding any celestial object in the night sky will be anywhere from frustrating to impossible.

Finder scopes can easily get bumped around and need to be readjusted every time you set up your telescope. Most finder scopes have low magnification and cross hairs.

The best way to adjust the finder scope is to put a low power-wide field eyepiece in your main telescope and then, looking through the main scope, aim it toward a test target on the horizon like a flag or a church steeple.

Once you have the test object centered in your main scope, look through the finder scope and adjust the screws on the finder in such a way the test object is centered in the cross hairs.

Once that’s done, it’s much easier to find anything in the sky. Just center the celestial delight you want to gaze at in the cross hairs of the finder scope and it should be ready for your viewing pleasure in the main scope.

If you have a Newtonian Dobsonian reflector telescope, the ones that collect light with a parabolic mirror at the bottom of a tube, you probably have room for a Telrad finder. They cost about $40 to $50, but they are worth it.

Three red adjustable LED circles in the Telrad really help pinpoint a target much better than most finder scopes. Optional star charts are also available with Telrads that I’ve found really helpful. Several telescope outlets sell them. Just browse for “Telrad.”

Low power/low magnification

Whenever you look at something through your scope, start out with a high focal length/low power magnification eyepiece.

The focal length should be labeled somewhere on the eyepiece. Something like a 25 to 40mm focal length eyepiece should do the trick. It will give you a wide field of view to help you find what you’re looking for.

Then when you find your target, increase your magnification gradually with lower focal length/higher magnification eyepieces.

The image will naturally lose some clarity as you increase magnification depending on the aperture of your telescope and how much light gathering ability it has.

Look high enough

Make sure your target object is at least one-third of the way up from the horizon to the zenith. Otherwise, you’ll be looking through a lot more of Earth’s blurring atmospheric shell.

Also keep in mind that even if the skies are clear there may be a lot of wind in the high atmosphere, which can cause telescope targets to be less than impressive. That’s what astronomers call “bad seeing” and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The best thing to do is to try looking at the same object again on other nights.

Take long looks

Whenever you look at anything in your scope, try to take long continuous views, especially if looking at the planets. Try to view for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. That will let your viewing eye get adjusted to the light level inside your scope, which will allow you to see more details.

Atmospheric seeing conditions can also vary from minute to minute, and the longer you view any object, the greater the chance of catching “windows” of good seeing.

During extended times of viewing, you’ll probably have to move the scope periodically to keep the object in view, unless you’re lucky enough to have a clock driven motor that follows the stars across the sky for you.

Above all, be patient with your telescope. Read all of the instructions and remember that you don’t have to conquer the whole universe in one night or even one year.

Amateur astronomy is a lifelong hobby and for many people, including myself, a passion.

Comet passing by

Next week I’ll have suggestions on wonderful telescope targets to get you started, but in the meantime you have a good chance of seeing a new comet in the sky.

It’s Comet Lovejoy, discovered by Australian Terry Lovejoy last year.

Comets are basically 5 to 10 mile diameter piles of frozen rock and dust along with carbon dioxide ice and water ice, all held together by a weak level of gravity. They usually have highly elliptical elongated orbits around the sun.

A vast majority of the time, comets are located in the insanely cold far extreme outreaches of the solar system AND are super frozen.

When these ice and rock piles finally enter the inner portions of our solar system the ice starts to melt and forms a coma cloud that envelopes the nucleus of the comet.

As the melting continues a tail of vapor and dust develops as the energy from the sun or solar wind pushes on the coma cloud. That’s when comets become more easily visible.

That’s what’s going on with Comet Lovejoy right now. In fact this past week it passed within about 44 million miles of Earth on its way its closest approach to the sun, perihelion, at the end of this month.

For the next several weeks it should be visible using small telescopes, good binoculars, or even the naked eye.

The next several weeks are also good because sky whitewashing waning full moon has left the evening sky making Lovejoy spotting easier.

Throughout this week, look for Comet Lovejoy in high southeast sky in the early evening roughly from 7 to 10 p.m. in the constellation Taurus the Bull.

Scan the area about 15 degrees or about one and half times the width of your fist held at arm’s length to the right of the bright star Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus.

Toward the end of the week and next weekend, Lovejoy may be easier to find as it’ll be just to right of the bright naked eye Pleiades star cluster.

At first, it’ll resemble a fuzzy star and without too much trouble hopefully you’ll see the tail pointing to the left. No one knows for sure but Comet Lovejoy may have a really long tail.

As you can see in the diagram, I have Comet Lovejoy’s path among the stars the next several weeks. Good luck comet hunting.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications.