Sitting down at a new poker table means starting with almost no information.

You don't know who plays too many hands, who rarely gets involved without a strong holding, who likes to limp, or who is capable of putting serious pressure on the table.
That first orbit can tell you surprisingly much, the trick is not trying to learn everything at once.
Your first job is to build a map before you try to build reads.

First, do almost nothing

There is a temptation to establish yourself immediately. Don't.
Unless the cards give you a reason to get involved, the first orbit is a perfect opportunity to simply watch the table operate.

You don't need to prove that you're aggressive, defend every blind or manufacture an early bluff. Instead, pay attention to what happens before the flop.
Are pots frequently limped? Does someone open or enter more pots than he should? Are raises generally small or unusually large? Have three or four players seen a flop more than once?
These basic observations already tell you something about the environment you're entering.

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Start with the things you can actually measure

Early impressions about individual players are unreliable, concrete actions are much more useful.
Start with stack sizes. Who has a deep stack? Who is short? Who has roughly the same amount as you?

Then watch opening sizes. If someone opens to 2.5 big blinds but one player made it 5, that's worth remembering. Especially if it happens more than once in the first orbit, the reason can wait.

Next, notice limpers and callers. A table where several players routinely limp into pots behaves very differently from one where almost every hand begins with a raise.
You're basically collecting facts.

Watch the hands, you aren't playing

This might be the most valuable habit of the entire first orbit.
Once you fold, don't mentally leave the table.

Watch who continues after the flop, or if no one does. Notice who bets and who calls. Pay attention if one of the hands (or more than one!) reaches showdown.
Showdowns are particularly valuable because you finally get to connect actions with actual cards.

That player who called a raise, called the flop and suddenly made a large river bet? Seeing what they eventually turn over gives context to everything you just watched.
One showdown isn't enough to define a player, obviously, but it gives you your first real piece of evidence.

Don't create player profiles yet

Observation can become dangerous, though.
Suppose someone raises three hands during your first orbit. It's easy to immediately label them as aggressive. They might be. They might also have been dealt aces, ace-king and queens.

Poker produces short-term sequences that look meaningful even when they're completely ordinary. Eight or nine hands are nowhere near enough to understand someone's game.

So keep your descriptions deliberately simple.
Instead of: “Seat 4 is a maniac.” in this case you should think “Seat 4 opened three times this orbit.” In other words, don't jump to conclusions and consider everything as a piece of valuable information.

Find where the action is coming from

By the end of the orbit, you may already notice that some parts of the table tend to be busier than others.
Perhaps the player two seats to your right entered several of the pots. Maybe the big stack across the table has been applying pressure on each hand. Or that one player has limped several times and another keeps isolating them.

This begins to create your table map, and position makes that map useful.
Having an active player on your right is very different from having one on your left. A short stack immediately behind you creates different situations from a deep stack capable of covering everyone.
Now you're beginning to understand the shape of the table.

One orbit, no conclusions

After one complete orbit, you shouldn't expect to know how everyone plays.
But: you now know more than you did when you sat down.

A useful first-orbit checklist can be reduced to five things:
Stacks → opening sizes → limpers → showdowns → pace
That's enough.
During the next orbit, some of your observations will repeat. Others won't. That's when isolated actions slowly start becoming patterns.
Good poker observation works exactly like that: first collect information, then look for repetition, and only then start drawing conclusions.
Your first orbit is all about learning what to look and where. That's all.