Beatlejohn,
G’day.
Welcome to the challenge of finding objects for yourself.
A book I thoroughly recommend is “Star Watch: The Amateur Astronomer's Guide to Finding, Observing, and Learning about Over 125 Celestial Objects” by Philip S Harrington. Go along to your local library and see if they have a copy on the shelf.
This is a wonderful book to get you into learning to star-hop. The stars and objects for each season are presented in 6 or 7 charts with clear instructions how to hop you way to the target object.
Once you realize that YOU CAN find objects – well the sky is the limit.
Here is a link to the book on Philip Harrington’s website. You can see examples of the information in each chapter and the Sky-Charts at
http://www.philharrington.net/swtch.htm
The Book Depository currently has soft-cover edition available at AUD $25.92.
http://www.bookdepository.com/Star-W.../9780471418047
Two good bits of advice commonly given on IIS are to get a planisphere, and to download Stellarium. You should take some time to sit down with your planisphere to locate and identify the constellations in the sky.
A useful bit of advice I got when starting out was to learn the position of the 20 brightest stars.
And join your local Astronomy group – if there is one!
I agree wholeheartedly with madwayne that Ruby Crucis, the little blood red carbon star close by Beta Crucis, is worth a visit. It is a beautiful little gem sitting there in contrast to the blue-white Mimosa. I always include it in my sky-tours.
Cheers.