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For about a tenner you can get a planisphere; when I was into stargazing I found it brilliant to learn the basics & find my way around. There's also loads of websites where you can print out a star chart for any given night. Heavens-Above is a brilliant resource (you need to set your global position for best effect).

Although Mars & Saturn are above the horizon, they are low so save them for another night. I'd say the obvious thing to look for to get yourself going tonight would be to look for the Summer Triangle:

Vega in the constellation Lyra (a parallelogram of stars with one really bright one - Vega - to the top right is an easy find, then the other two form a nearby triangle (Deneb in Cygnus & Altair in Aquila). When you find them, try & just pick out the shapes of the constellations. Cassiopaea is a fairly easy hit (a W shape - always visible & very high up in Northern skies).

Just enjoy looking to start with though - you'll soon start to recognise the patterns.

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I’m going to have a bit of a stab in the dark & say it could be Vega if its quite high or maybe Arcturus if it’s low ( actually thinking that might be the opposite side) Otherwise one of the triangle. It’s hard to visualise in my head but I’ll have a look out if I get chance tomorrow & see if I can work it out. Don’t tell some of our friends on here but it sounds a bit like you’re looking towards Polaris ;)

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I tried to have a look out as it came dark here but we have a fairly cloudy sky at the moment. Insofar as I can get a view, I reckon maybe if the Plough is to your left, your bright star might be Capella (constellation Auriga). It would be SE from the Plough but is a very bright & easy to spot star (in fact it's actually a set of stars).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capella

 

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