What to look for

[banders808]

New on the forum and pretty new to star gazing. My 5 YO daughter got a telescope for her birthday (Sky-watcher Heritage 76) and we've been out in the back garden a few times, she really likes the moon, we had a good look at Venus and I had a look at Orion Nebula.

So, what else should I be able to see with the scope from my back garden?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

The Pleiades are well placed at the moment and spectacular in any scope. Star clusters in general (open and globular) will make good targets due to their high surface brightness.

[Size9Hex]

Welcome to the forum! The Pleiades above is a great suggestion. Did you catch Mars just above and left (just over a fist width at arms length) of Venus? To the unaided eye, it's the brightest "star" in the area excluding Venus and slightly red tinted. It's not in the ideal part of its orbit right now, so it appears quite small in the scope however. Also try the Orion Sword area. The middle star has a large beautiful star forming cloud around it (lookup M42 in Orion). Good luck. There's loads to see in that scope!

edit: I just remembered I used this when I first started and found it very useful: http://skymaps.com/downloads.html

[kilix]

If you have dark enough skies, you can try viewing M31 The Andromeda galaxy.

In heritage76 some globular clusters should be nice looking. Like M35, M36, M37, M38 in Auriga, which are now close to zenith.

Also the double cluster in Kassiopeia is a nice bright object. Visible to the naked eye and good looking even at low magnifications.

[ronin]

Presently there are only a few "big" things.

The repeat some already: Pleiades, Orion Nebula. Then between those 2 are the Hyadres with the orange star Aldebaren in there. If you can find Cassiopeia and Perseus then midway between is the double cluster. Find The Plough and the "star" in the middle of the handle is a close double (Mizar+Alcor). The classic double, Albireo, is below the horizon at present - 2 contrasting colours. As an alternative you could try Almaak (leave you to find out where it is in Andromeda). That leads me to say have you tried the Andromeda galaxy, M31 ?

Evening as said point at Venus (likely already have) then look sort of above and left of Venus and there is a dull brown/red tiny disk, that is Mars.

Many you can check out with binoculars first, then point the scope at them.

Plain simple stars: Try Sirius (brighest in our sky) Betelguese. Can make a short list of say 10 red stars and get daughter to locate each one. Finding stars is a fair way of getting to learn your way around the sky, that is how people do it, so always a good idea.

[Nyctimene]

Many good advices already above.

For cloudy evenings, download  the star map/planetarium software stellarium:http://www.stellarium.org/ . It's free, and a very good way to continue the learning about constellations and heavenly bodies. The mythological background might be interesting for your daughter as well; there is the story of the princess Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia, who is rescued from the sea monster Cetus by young hero Perseus, riding the winged horse Pegasus....and so on. You can display the mythological constellations with stellarium; afterwards, try to find the constellations in the sky. Have fun!

Stephan

[happy-kat]

Or say how far away the object is or how old or what it is made from to keep it factually interesting.