Had scope out last night evostar 120 eq5 (left avatar) 1st viewing, clear night for a change, the moon was blearing!! coming up in the east, i sneaked out of house at 11.00pm dragged the eq5 out on to the launch pad, got the scope on with a bit of fumbling on the dove tail!! had a go on Cassiopeia high in east, double cluster ngc 957 and....wow always impresses me this, took a while to orientate it though the up side down finder scope!! which was awkward to look though has the star diagonal was in the way had to keep moving it on the locking collar, so i could get my head in. had a go at m1o1 above pan handle but still not seen, even had the galaxy ace phone up with google star map, which is very good and accurate. no luck. looked at perseus which always reminds me of a saxaphone (not tonight though! and then up to auriga, hoping for m37 38 but too low in sky obscured by a tree, had a go on moon wow it was blinding though the evo, out with moon filter, and.......the wow factor really crisp and sharp good detail, still a bit blinding though. by this time it was 1pm and i was tired and fumbling around dropping things now, the £20 light pollution filter ended up in the grass, found that so decided to pack up, took me nearly half hour to put the scope away and other stuff. and crawed off in too my warm bed.

Ah yes, know the feeling. I get one of those nights ever so often when my careful plans go south within the first 5 minutes, The power cable pops loose after aligning, I kick the tripod leg after re-aligning. The power goes dead after twice aligning. Then a racoon walks up to me - presumably mistaking me for a tree - causing me to close the garage in case he decides to nest there ... Sometimes take down seems to take forever. But I have timed myself twice - 10 minutes. Feels like a half hour - but just 10 minutes .... I remind myself how long the C14 Brigade with wedges must take to setup and I think - 10 minutes is not so bad :-)

Always worth the effort - because every so often you have a blinding good night -everything works well - you see the veil easily - the ISS comes over - the neighbours forget to put their outside lights on - ahh yes, that keeps me going until the next time.

Ps M101 is a [removed word] to see even in a good sky - its more like a light grey piece of sky than any definate shape ....

I just got bleeped - I love it - makes my post sound more dangerous that it really was!

ahh right sounds about same here for me in uk with the garden lights and all. they really peee off, some how the deep sky stuff may be not seen in the city.