First altitude. Have you noticed how all the big professional scopes are not only located in remote areas, but these areas are also on the top of some pretty serious mountains? This is why Australia misses out on the really big optical telescopes as we don't have tall enough mountains. The higher you go, the less atmosphere, and the less turbulance you will be subjected to. The greatest elevation close to my home is two hours away for a height of 1000m. Though better than sea-level, I still don't escape turbulance for the vast majority of the year. You will see this distortion as a blurring of the image, where the object resists focusing, and when you hit on it, it blurrs again. The effect is the same as a mirage, where warm air being of different density, seems to move around a distant object.
I too have a 5" scope, a Celestron C5. The main difference between our scopes is that mine has a focal ratio of f/10, while yours is f/5. This makes yours able to see certain objects a little easier than in mine, like faint galaxies.
The main reason I mentioned my scope is that this way you can tell I won't be pulling your leg not only on what you can see, but how they will appear.
You will see beautiful deep sky objects like nebulae, open clusters, globuar clusters (some of which can be resolved in a 5" scope, meaning you will see its individual stars), and the brighter galaxies. What you won't see are the pretty colours you see in pictures, nor the arms of spiral galaxies. A five inch scope is just not big enough. You will see galaxies as faint ghostly shapes. Experience observing will be your best friend in identifying what you see. A dark-sky site will also be your best mate here too.
Planets: The Cassini division in Saturns rings will thrill, as too identifying Titan, its largest moon (see my post here with regards to this, though in here the post is for an 8" scope, you can do the same with your 5":
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...6&postcount=10 ).
You will be able to make out a tiny disk with Uranus, plus its faint greenish colour (you can also see it in 7X50 binos, so a 5" scope is no problem). Neptune is also a sinch, though no disk, but its give-away characteristic being its blue colour is just too deep to be a star. With both of these you will need specialist maps to pin down. Sky and Telescope publishes these yearly.
Mars when close enough to us, will even show an icey-white polar cap!
Comets? No problem when they are around and bright enough, but not like in picture again. Moon? Boy, you are in for a treat. Not only craters, but valleyies, escarpments, ridges.
Your scope's manual states 330X without distortion! OK. Fine. Try it out. That is the best way to know.
There are a number of star charts available from the Stickies in the beginners forum. This is my favourite for just starting out:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas/atlas.htm . Print it out and have a go.
to IIS!
