Hi Jarryd,
and welcome to IIS. I've never downloaded any star charts, but I'd imagine they are pretty similar to the Philips Planisphere that is available to purchase at bookstores such as Angus and Robertson or Dymocks etc for about $20.
Basically, the thing consists of a rotating disc on the outside, which surrounds a picture of the whole of the night sky on the inside of the circle. You adjust the moveable disc to make the time and date match up (the 'time' being the time you are actually stood out there observing in case that wasn't obvious!). And then you would typically face south and hold the planisphere above your head with the 'South' marker on the device pointing to actual South on the ground.
The stars that you see in the sky should pretty much match up with the picture on your Planisphere.
These devices are typically quite accurate whereas a downloaded star chart could only be for a time either early evening, mid evening or midnight, and so the picture presented when you hold them in the same way as described above, may not quite match the actual night sky for the time you're stood there trying to make sense of it all
. But it would be somewhat similar, and once you understood why it was slightly different, this wouldn't be a major problem.
There's an assortment of reasonable books available at good bookstores on the subject of Astronomy. Try to pick something that refers specifically to the southern hemisphere otherwise much of the book may be wasted on you.
Hope it helps Jarryd. Cheers
