The feeling when you first see something through a telescope is fantastic :). Seeing the rings of Saturn is equally captivating. Depending on where you live, you could look and see if a local university has a telescope with public viewings (which are sometimes even free!).
In your picture, the moons in order (closest to farthest) will likely be Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. A neat site that lets you see the moon's positions: http://shallowsky.com/jupiter/.
Some other things to see (besides planets):
Stars that are noticeable different in color (like Sirius and Betelgeuse) as a little learning opportunity (why are they different colors?).
a binary/double star system, like Mizar and Alcor (particular those two because they're really easy to find in the sky as they are part of the big dipper). Technically if you have good enough eyesight you can see the two stars with the naked eye, but if not then even a simple telescope should make them distinguishable. Which I think can be kinda neat in that it sort of shows a "hidden" star.
And star clusters. They really make you go "damn, there are a ton of stars out there". The Pleiades and Beehive Clusters are probably the most popular and easy to see ones.
Nebula. This really depends on how dark it is where you live. The Orion Nebula would likely be the best candidate, since it's one of the brightest and relatively easy to find. If you can find that, it's awesome.
Also, /r/astronomy and /r/astrophotography if you want to feel really inadequate with whatever setup you have (regardless if it's $30 or $1000).
There's also a nice (and free) program called Stellarium that functions as a planetarium, which makes getting a general idea of where something is in the sky at a particular date/time much easier. You can use it to search for a particular object, see where it is in the sky at the time you want to be outside, and then you'll know where to look for it.
skotnado on April 25th, 2017 at 16:00 UTC »
You've inspired me to try driving my hotwheels to work tomorrow
curahee5656 on April 25th, 2017 at 16:07 UTC »
Try for Saturn. Even a modestly priced telescope can see the rings.
notcaffeinefree on April 25th, 2017 at 18:37 UTC »
The feeling when you first see something through a telescope is fantastic :). Seeing the rings of Saturn is equally captivating. Depending on where you live, you could look and see if a local university has a telescope with public viewings (which are sometimes even free!).
In your picture, the moons in order (closest to farthest) will likely be Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. A neat site that lets you see the moon's positions: http://shallowsky.com/jupiter/.
Some other things to see (besides planets):
Stars that are noticeable different in color (like Sirius and Betelgeuse) as a little learning opportunity (why are they different colors?).
a binary/double star system, like Mizar and Alcor (particular those two because they're really easy to find in the sky as they are part of the big dipper). Technically if you have good enough eyesight you can see the two stars with the naked eye, but if not then even a simple telescope should make them distinguishable. Which I think can be kinda neat in that it sort of shows a "hidden" star.
And star clusters. They really make you go "damn, there are a ton of stars out there". The Pleiades and Beehive Clusters are probably the most popular and easy to see ones.
Nebula. This really depends on how dark it is where you live. The Orion Nebula would likely be the best candidate, since it's one of the brightest and relatively easy to find. If you can find that, it's awesome.
Also, /r/astronomy and /r/astrophotography if you want to feel really inadequate with whatever setup you have (regardless if it's $30 or $1000).
There's also a nice (and free) program called Stellarium that functions as a planetarium, which makes getting a general idea of where something is in the sky at a particular date/time much easier. You can use it to search for a particular object, see where it is in the sky at the time you want to be outside, and then you'll know where to look for it.