Joe,
Welcome to the universe. You are going to like it here.
I have been at this for a year now so here are some suggestions.
1) don't be afraid of the star parties. They will welcome you with open arms. You can leave your scope at home and just go to see what everyone else is doing the first time. That is what I did. Wonderful experience.
2) I presume this is a manual scope, no computer assistance, so you are going to have to find your own targets. Here are some tools to help.
Stellarium - mentioned above.
SkEye for an Android phone or tablet. Point the phone at the sky and it will tell you what you are looking at.
Turn Left at Orion - or its Southern Hemisphere equivalent. A great book for getting started. I love mine.
3) Pick an area of the sky that is your best. For me it is East. Using Stellarium and SkEye study that part of the sky. See what is there to be seen. Start with the brightest objects and work to dimmer things over time. Get to know that one part of the sky.
4)
www.tonight'ssky.com
When you are planning an observing session there are a variety of way to
proceed.
* You can set up your scope and just wander around the sky. I sometimes do
that.
* You can scan with binoculars or the finder scope and when you see
something interesting, zero in on it with the telescope.
* You can start to organize you observation sessions with a target list
using "Tonight's Sky", a free web site that will allow you to run a report
of what is in your sky tonight. It will let you select the difficulty of
the targets and will provide a printed, PDF or HTML report that you can use
when you are at your telescope.
The default sort is by difficulty, from brightest to dimmest. That is
great but you could end up all over the sky trying to work the list. I
normally sort it by constellation. Then I can mark the constellations that
are in my best part of the sky and focus on them. You could spend an
entire evening working on small part of the sky finding all sorts of cool
stuff.
Aside from making it easier to observe, you get to know a specific region of
the sky. You can focus on Orion, for example. See all that is in Orion
up to the capability of your telescope. Then move on to Taurus or
Cassiopeia or whatever constellations are in the best areas for you to
observe.
Not sure which constellations are in your best viewing area? I use
Stellarium to help me see which constellations are in my best viewing area.
For me that is East and directly overhead. But you could use a Planisphere,
a star chart, "Turn Left at Orion, or an app on your phone or tablet.
Here is how you do it.
Tonight's Sky Web site
http://www.tonightss...om/MainPage.php
Put in your location and time settings and click the box to remember them
Select the difficulty level - If you are using binoculars then select that.
If you are in a highly light polluted area work naked eye and binoculars
first, maybe small telescope. If you can find all of those then on the next
report raise the difficulty level. I attached a screen shot of the
settings I use.
Select what types of targets you want to see - Planets, clusters, whatever
you want.
Run the report - standard sort that will be displayed is by increasing
magnitude number, that is to say brightest to dimmest
Choose which ones you want in the printed report, or select all.
Select Print or right click and select print. If you want a PDF select
"save as"
I change default print out sort to "by constellation"
Run the report and it will be sorted by constellation. This is how I
normally sort it.
You can print it or save it as a PDF or a web page. If you save it as a web
page there are live links to resources for each item.
Just another resource.
I've seen on facebook a group astro anarchy who go to Wyralong dam a little west of Beaudesert which is not too far from me in Jimboomba so I may go at some point when I have some more confidence.
