I hope you’ve had the best holiday season of your life and that Santa Claus brought you everything you wanted.

If you received that telescope that you always wanted, you have many fun nights ahead of you. You’ll be able to get a little closer, at least visually, to that big universe over your head, provided clouds don’t get in the way. Be patient though, you’re in it for the long term, at least hopefully.

There are several kinds of telescopes out there for your stargazing enjoyment, but for all of them there are definite dos and don’ts for successful stargazing. If you’re like me you hate instructions, but following the basic rules of telescope viewing can make a big difference. If you want to enjoy your scope and not have it wind up in a closet, here are my suggestions:

1. Always use your telescope outside

Poking your telescope out of a 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 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 you’re likely to see blurred images.

2. Set your telescope 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 or anyone with you will jiggle the scope just enough to drive you crazy. It’s best to set up your telescope on solid ground.

3. 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 very 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 an American 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 that the test object is centered in the cross hairs. Once that’s done, it’s much easier to find anything in the night sky. Just center the celestial target 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 $40 to $50 and are worth it. Three red adjustable LED circles in the Telrad really help pinpoint on a target much better than most finder scopes. Optional star charts are also available with Telrads that are helpful. Several telescope outlets sell them. Just browse for “Telrad.”

4. Start with 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 40-millimeter 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.

5. 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 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 and see if it’s any better.

6. Take long looks

Whenever you look at anything in your scope, try to take long continuous views of whatever you’re viewing, especially 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 viewing. During extended times of viewing any particular target 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 life long hobby and for many people like myself, a passion.

Next week in Starwatch 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 a by Australian Terry Lovejoy last year. Comets are basically five to ten 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 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. You may even be able to spot it in urban/suburban skies plagued by light moderate light pollution. The next several weeks are also good because sky whitewashing waning full moon has left the evening sky making Lovejoy spotting easier in darker night skies.

Throughout this week look for Comet Lovejoy in high southeast sky in the early evening roughly from 7 to 10pm 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. Stay tuned.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations” published by Adventure Publications available at bookstores at http://www.adventurepublications.net.