I'm not a stargazer by any means but I read an article a couple weeks ago that Mars is unusually bright these days. I then saw this very bright reddish 'star' that wasn't twinkling, and used a phone app to confirm that it was Mars. It's really striking. I see it every morning walking to the train. What's even cooler is if I turn 180 degrees, there's a very bright white thing in the opposite direction that's not twinkling and it turns out it's Venus. At that time they are both the brightest things in the sky pretty much and they line up fairly perfectly so the earth/I am in the middle. It's a trippy feeling.
Trippy!
A planisphere is a relatively cheap and useful purchase (or a good xmas/birthday list inclusion) and can be carried easily in a pocket. I was a bit of an astronomy enthusiast as a kid and had a telescope, star charts etc. I didn't pursue it beyond that but was given a planisphere for my birthday a while back and have enjoyed using it since.