Quick list of tips for everyone who got their first telescope for the holidays

I posted this as a comment in a recent thread, but thought it'd do more good as its own submission

I'll try to compile a list of cool tricks/sites/tools.

1. Stellarium - Must have free app for anyone interested in observational astronomy. Works with Windows/Linux/OSX (thanks exekutor!). FREE!!!!

2. Low Power (5mW or less) Green laser pointer - Use appropriately. Shining aircraft/etc is ILLEGAL. tips here

3. Pirates Eye Patch - Cover "viewing" eye while in the house/looking at sky charts, then uncover the eye you put to the eyepiece of the telescope. Now the lights from your house/flashlight won't destroy your nightvision

4. A simple hood (like from a coat, or hoodie) is great if there is a nearby light source. In my neighborhood, there seems to always be a porch light on in the worst spot.

5. Clear Sky Chart - http://cleardarksky.com/csk/ A forecast of conditions for stargazing. Charts cloud cover, Sky transparency, and air turbulence/seeing ('twinkling' stars are due to air turbulence, make images 'boil' in a scope). Apps are available for smart phones too.

6. Cloudynights.com - Great online community of stargazers of all skill levels. A great bunch of people and an amazing source of information [From ZEbbEDY: stargazerslounge.com is another excellent site]

7. A decent set of eyepieces in just a few focal lengths. Many telescopes now come with nice eyepieces with good glass and coatings. But if your scope came with plastic lenses in the eye pieces, or the images are blurry, or they are called Kellner or Huygen, even on good nights and looking at the moon, a inexpensive set of "Plossl" (its a style of lens configuration inside the eye piece) is a GREAT investment. My first scope came with really crappy ep's, but 2 plossls costing only ~$40 total kept me from tossing it and giving up.

8. Realistic expectations of what you are going to see in the telescope. You aren't holding onto the Hubble, even the planets are going to be smallish blury-detailed off-white dots. Nebulae and galaxies are usually just faint fuzzy patches. But even so... Saturns Rings or open clusters of stars... WOW :-D

9. Sketch what you see. After you get down the basics of how to actually find and focus on an object, try a brief, basic sketch of what you see in the eye piece. No artistic skill needed, they're just dots! I started off with post-it notes with a circle traced from a can. One year I had several nights in a row of clear skys and drew Jupiter and its moons. Made a very cool flip-book. Sketching also makes you see more detail. Don't ask me how it works, but it does.

10. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance A brief list of interesting objects in the sky this week. If you don't know what to look at in that vast abyss above us, this is a good place to start.

11. Observing buddies. Find a friend who is interesting in the sky (Significant Others, family members, friends, neighbors). Join a local astronomy club. Join an online group [Hey, you already did that one!].

12. Warm fingerless gloves. Warm pants. Nothings more frustrating than having to pack it in for the night because you're shivering too much to touch the scope :) Especially because colder nights tend to have the clearest skys. And who doesn't love being able to bring out the scope just after dinner time during winter, instead of waiting til 10PM+ in the summer.

13. Red light flashlight. Lots of ways to do this one. I've had everything from a cheapie $1 flashlight with the bulb and lense painted red with a red sharpie to a set of cheap red LED keychain lights (dealextreme.com. Pack of 5 for like $3). Finding something with a clip, or some kind of stand so you dont have to hold it is a life saver. Red light won't disturb your nightvision as much as the other colors. Keychain 10-pack, $5!!!!!

14. Don't get into astrophotography. I know crackheads and heroin junkies who spend less money per year on their habit. (lol, this one is a joke.) Edit: Its entirely possible to take very good (as in, if you show them to a lay-person they will absolutely ooh and ahh) with a basic point-and-shoot or even a phone camera through the eye piece of even a inexpensive telescope. Just hold the camera so that it sees through the eyepiece just like it was your own eye and take a picture. Go out, try it on the moon tonight (its a nice crescent right now, which will really show off all the surface details at the terminator, aka the shadow line). Put that image in the thank you card for whoever bought you the telescope, they will be impressed!

-- Clear Skies!

Several people have added more tips, I've included them here

From Jack_Dubious

15. Let your telescope cool down for an hour. Especially you guys with the large Dobs and SCT's, let that mirror cool down or the heat rising off it will smear your images.

16. Seriously, dont get into astrophotography.

From interweb_wanderer

17. Get a quality pair of binoculars. Doesn't matter if you have a gigantic telescope, get them. Stargazing isn't about pure magnifying power it's about getting the best view you can. Some objects are too large to fully appreciate at high magnification and bright enough to see in binocs. Plus binocs are faster to aim than any telescope.

18. Get a TELRAD. Trust me on this, life will become a billion times easier for you.

From ZEbbEDY

19. Dust on the primary of a reflector is quite normal and wont affect the view. Dont worry it doesn't need cleaned. Attempts to do so will frequently make the mirror worse.