I'm so glad to have stumbled across this post. It reassures me that I'm not doing anything wrong!
My 7 year old daughter is fascinated by all things space so we bought her a 5" dobsonian for her birthday mid December. Since then, of course, there have only been 2 nights where we can see the sky...
I have always liked a bit of stargazing, although mainly in my youth when it was an excuse to be outside my mother's house and smoke "special" roll-ups after dark! I've never had a telescope and have no experience with astronomy.
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed to be honest. I'm enjoying the journey of discovery that we're starting out on together, but knowing next to nothing myself, I worry that I will spoil her enthusiasm for the subject. I realised that images through a sub-£200 dob ≠ hubble, but I worry that my daughter will be disappointed. Additionally, having no idea what I'm looking for/at, I'm at a loss of how to keep her entertained!
We've seen Jupiter (just a large white disc currently, no other details) and the galilean moons and watched them move about between the 2 nights of observing so far! Also looked at andromeda galaxy which underwhelmed my daughter until she realised what it was and that the light was 2.5million years old! That blew her away. We've seen the pleiades and hyades and enjoyed the different coloured stars. I spent a fruitless few hours looking for the comet currently in Gemini too, but couldn't find it!
Sorry for the long post, and the emotional outpouring... Some practical suggestions for how to introduce my daughter to astronomy while giving me some practical tips on how to improve my own skills in a stepwise manner would be much appreciated!