Unmissable winter objects?

Mr Bloat

The more I use my telescope, the better appreciation I get for the motion of our planet and the heavens. I was unpleasantly surprised last night when I took my telescope out that most of Orion had sunk below a neighbours house and with it, M42. Granted, I was out about an hour later than my usual time but it got me thinking that in a short space of time, I wouldn't be able see it until next winter again. Obviously something else will come to take it's place but I'm now wondering what else I should be taking time to view that will not be visible in a few weeks.
I would be interested to get opinions on what objects I should be pointing my telescope at now, before they move from our skies in a short time.

mickmackey1

I would definitely download planetarium software such as Stellarium -

http://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium/

It's free and once you enter your location it will show the night sky at any moment in time. If your system doesn't meet the requirements of the newest release, you can download one of the previous versions.

Popoutman

Gamma Arietis, double star, beautiful in smaller scopes. Might be a bit hard to get to see before sinking into the western murk..
M1 Crab nebula. Supernova remnant.
See if you can spot the E and F stars in the Trapezium. On a steady night it's possible with quite a small scope..
M35 and NGC 2158. Compare and contrast as M35 is a lot closer and actually younger, while NGC2158 is older, farther away, reddened slightly by interstellar dust, and has a lot more cluster members.
Rigel as a double star. Easy in most scopes.
Sirius as a double star, though this one is hard. I only managed it for the first time for certain recently with my 12" scope.
Binocular scanning of the milky way through Monoceros into Canis Major, see if you can pick up the likes of the Rosette and the Christmas Tree cluster, M41 and M50.
M36/M37/M38 in Auriga either in binoculars or scopes, these open clusters give nice contrasts between themselves.
If you have a scope, try to see M46 and M47, and see can you see the little planetary nebula NGC2438 silhouetted against the stars of M46.

jfSDAS

Definitely try track down Sue French's two books "Celestial Sampler" and "Deep Sky a Wonders". Both books are a treasure trove of tours of the night sky that will keep you busy for quite some time. The former book contains 60 night sky tours with a 4-inch scope but are even useful for those who use only large binoculars, like myself (25x100mm Helios Quantum 4's). The latter book is based on use of slightly larger scopes but some tours are duplicated in both books.

Sue French continues to write the "Deep Sky Wonders" column monthly in Sky & Telescope magazine. In fact, the best investment I've ever made in the hobby is to have bought the magazine's DVD archive: Thousands of pages of articles cover a 70 year period and are a mine of information.

Also, check out the observing columns by Steve Coe on http://www.cloudynights.com and Phil Harrington's on the same site.

"turn Left at Orion" is another must have book on the shelf, while other online resources include The Astronomical League's list from their various observing clubs.

Clear skies!

John