Fintan

Hi all, after much research I (44 years old) have bought my first telescope, a Skywatcher Heritage 150 Virtuoso GTI. On the Friday I got it, I managed to get it put together and collimated fairly easily (It's funny how terrified I was of collimation while choosing a scope!). I took it out in daylight and got the scope and red dot finder aligned. On the Saturday, the sky went in my favour with 2% cloud cover. I went out to my back garden (Bortle 5) and used the wifi and SynScan app for the first time and after some tinkering got it fairly well aligned using Arcturus and Capella. After some general observing around the night sky I went to the "Tonight's Best" section of the app and clicked on "Gamma Cas Nebula". Directly in the eyepiece with no adjustment needed with a 10mm lens I could see a small circle of blue-ish dots with a dark centre about the size of thumbnail and above and to the left, a small white image like a whisp of smoke. I *think* I was seeing IC59 and IC63, but am happy to be corrected. I also observed the starfish cluster. Anyway, it was a wonderful first observing experience and made me excited by how much I have to learn about my new hobby. I can't wait to get out again, though "Clear Outside" is making me think it might be a while!!