What to look at?

[njjmfm]

Tonight it's going to rain. Tomorrow night is supposed to be partly cloudy and beautiful. Low 50s and low humidity. I have a pair of 10x50s. What objects would be good to look at? I want to get used to my binos before I start another AL project. Any suggestions?

[Wasatch]

I would suggest the planets, maybe Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, some double stars.

[dmbryan]

I say crack open a cold one and cruise the mikyway. A great way to spend the evening.

[njjmfm]

Well I guess I can enjoy a cold one on Monday, I turn 15 XD. I hope you were talking about a soda, bc I can go for one.

[dmbryan]

Soda sounds good my friend. Lol. Enjoy the skies. I didn't realize you were 15. It is awesome to get into astronomy so early. You'll be a grizzled vet before most have ever taken up the hobby. Clear skies.

[njjmfm]

You know, after I moved from a white zone to a red-orange border and there were actual stars! Looking at the sun started my fascination, then the moon, and the Orion Nebula! It just took off and now I want my professional job to be an astronomer.

[Ruud]

The Andromeda galaxy looks really nice in binoculars, and the double cluster in Perseus is high in the sky too. There's a lot to see, really.

Have you already tried the free program Stellarium to find objects?

Happy observing!

[njjmfm]

It seems like my binos will become my new favorite instrument

[hal2000]

Binoculars are particularly good for star clusters. Look out for, in no particular order, M45, M11, M34, M29, M39, and, all in Cassiopeia, M103, NGC663, NGC457 and NGC654. If you can see Sagittarius, look for M22, M25, M24. Try to identify Mu Cephei, the red star in Cepheus, and don't forget the already mentioned double cluster in Perseus and M31 in Andromeda.

[midnite-penguin]

Just got my first pair of binoculars this weekend, brand new to astronomy here. Tonight's conditions were super cloudy, I could only see slivers of stars between the clouds(seriously only about 15% of the sky was visible, and it was always shifting. However I was able to spot a few big stars, Saturn(it was very bright @2:30am here on the eastern horizon), and(my favorite of the night) a cluster of stars just above Saturn that looked amazing, dense and bright, yet distant. I don't have a star map or anything yet so I didn't know what I was looking at until I came inside and checked the Stellarium software. It was Plieades, M45 - my first Messier object!

Now I'm hooked, I cant wait to hunt down more Messier objects, I think I should probably keep a log so I know what I've found so far. I only spent a few minutes because the cloud cover was futile, I'm sure I could knock out a bunch on a clearer night with more time.

So my suggestion is M45, at the top of Taurus(I think?) its my early favorite, like a tiny constellation of its own.