Planets
A planet is currently defined as a Solar System body that orbits the Sun, does not orbit another object that orbits the Sun, has enough mass to form a rounded shape, and has cleared out its orbital neighborhood. The word planet derives from the Greek term for wanderers as they seem to wander in relation to the fixed stars.
Getting Started
Although planets do not qualify as deep sky objects, they are good observing targets when sky conditions are too poor for looking at faint fuzzies. Start by observing the bright, naked-eye planets such as Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn. In the old days, you needed a table known as an ephemeris to locate a planet on a particular date. These days you can use a much user-friendlier planetarium program such as Stellarium to locate visible planets for your site on any given date.