Hi all. Absolute beginner here. I've purchased a set of 12x60 binoculars a couple months ago but found it was difficult to hold them steady to see anything. So I just picked up a cheap monopod and this morning was the first clear night I had, so I headed out from around 3:30 to 5:00 am eastern US time (western pennsylvania).
My initial plan was to try to locate some northern objects such as M81, M82 and other objects in Ursa Major, Canes Venatici, and Coma Berenices, but visibility to the north seemed to be bad. I was not able to locate either M81 or M82, so I turned to the south.
I put my binoculars on Jupiter. Jupiter itself appeared as a "fuzzy star" and to it's immediate right and left where two very small white specs (or stars). Are these Jupiter's moons -- Europa and Ganymede? If so, that's soooo cool.
Then I noticed (using stellarium), that to the southwest of Jupiter was M75. I was able to locate a set of four stars that resembled (to me) a bowl like in the big or small dipper, and just to n-w of this bowl was a small fuzzy patch barely visible. I think this is officially my first messier object! :-)
To the SE of jupiter in my sky was Sagitarrius, and I noticed there were Messier objects between zeta sgr and epsilon sgr. I was able to positively identify M54.. which is located within the same fov or very close to that of zeta sgr.
After straining my eyes trying to find these two little buggers, I then turned to the east and found within seconds M31. I probably spent 10 minutes looking at M75 and M54 trying to confirm that I was actually seeing what I thought, but there was no doubt with M31. Awesome. I think I was able to make out a small patch above M31 (which would be M110), but I'm not positive I could see it so I'm not counting it :).
Finally, I turned to Cassiopeia and was able to locate M103, which is located just to the SW of delta cas. This again was very hard to see.. just a small patch of fuzz.
All in all, a great night -- 4 messier objects and jupiter. I'm hooked.