Total Beginner here Please help??

Hi All
Just got a telescope for christmas from my wife and I ive always wanted one but never got round to doing so for one reason or another...

Anyways she got me one in Lidl "MEADE ETX 70AT"Its using autostar Goto thingymebob . Okay so tonight 3rd of Jan was the first chance i have gotten to go out and use it. I read all the instructions and very short videos on meades web site as well as this web site . Im not up on the technical jarogn yet but have down loaded programmes like stellarium (very good ). Well most of it went pear shaped..It was a real clear night....very frosty..thats fine..which eye piece should I be using to look at stars and which for planets..I tried to look at mars and it seems no bigger than other bright stars like sirrius..vega...capella... may be Im completely doing worng but I am kind of let down by what i did and didn't see....Is it just the telescope or is it me.....Which is the most effective way of aligning it.....what should mars be showing up like... saturn was to low for me blocked by mountains...Whats a good place to start i dont want to give this up...I do have an interest.....just not sure where to start and what to start with....I have binoculars but want to make the most of autostar as I haven't a clue where most things are sorry??Any advise appreciated... Regards Rossa :oops:

Rossa i dont know anything about your scope (i barely know anything about my own cuz its my 1st one also) )but what i do know...........is that you are in the right place and asking all the right questions. Sit back and relax and i promise you that the people here will put you right.

Welcome to the boards Rossa and (in true Ronan from gift grub voice)
FAIR PLAY! for going out observing tonight! its bitterly cold!!!

Ok,
So ETX 70mm
Its a good starter scope.

The best way to align it is to use the standard 'automatic' alignment
(does your model have 'Level North' or does it ask you in the manual
to level the scope and point it North?)

When it comes to Mars,
be aware that it is TINY!
With an ETX 70 you are not gonna see much by way of detail,
You will however see it is not 'stellar'
as in it looks different to the stars.
It should still show a nice reddish colour.
But you have to have a bigger aperatuer scope to see any detail
(In my opinion, something bigger than 12'' for visual)

Did you have a look at the Orion Nebula tonight?
Thats always a nice sight in a low powered scope or even binoculars.

Pity Saturn was so low for you.
The very first thing I saw through a scope was Saturn
last year through my ETX-125 and it was very cool.
Not huge mind, looked about the same size as the head of a
thumbtack held at arms length!
But the detail was there...the clouds and the rings...and the moons

The scope you have is excellent for the Moon!
You should check it out.
Best time is when there is some sort of phase so you can see
the craters and mountains in shadow (more detail and contrast)

A good site to check out also is
Mike Weasners 'Mighty' ETX site

www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html

Loads of good advice and tips there for ETX users.

Let us know how you get on and of you have any other questions
give us a shout!

Great....well after typing the first message i had another go at it and went back out into the cold.....anyways got mars and tryed the different eyepieces and got good results. I seen much better. I started to mess around hooked my web can up to my eye piece and took a few snaps of what i saw..... a wee bit grainey but its my first time ever!!! Thanks for the encouraging words....my scopes says to palce it in the home position and face it north...did all that but it seems to be out as i tried the "tonights best" and mars wasn't aligning up on it anyways enough im frozen been at it 5 hours now...lol
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2128/2164047721_0ff488cb2f.jpg?v=0
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2374/2164047339_af3ecc6a30.jpg?v=0
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2408/2164845684_0f8ac0fb57.jpg?v=0
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2222/2164845786_921d1e19ee.jpg?v=0

5 hrs on your 1st night in THIS cold?

Thats dedication.

Good stuff Rossa.
What webcam / settings did you use there?
The results don't look half bad at all!
If you use a 2x barlow along with an Infra Red filter I bet you'd
get some great images.

Have you ever tried stacking a 2min AVI video in the program Registax?

It can yeld awesome results.

Back to the images,
I can clearly make out the polar cap there and maybe even a little detail,
this tells me the seeing last night as I suspected was very good.

Well done for staying out that long!