I too had a great time last night. Seeing was poor early, improving to only 5-6/10 at best around midnight and usually worse than that, so I was not able to get good views of my usual targets, planets and doubles, so I tried finding DSO's for the first time with the 10" Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain. I am attempting to learn star hopping and just got a laptop running SkyMap Pro which is really helping me tremendously. Unfortunately I failed to bring the reticle illuminator for my finder which severely hampered my bumbling efforts but I did actually find about 7 or 8 galaxies, a couple of nebulae and a planetary in and around Orion, Ursa Major and Leo. A rather pathetic start but I was pleased with myself nonetheless! And some of the galaxies like M51 and M82 were really neat. But my favorite was a trio of objects that I stumbled on by luck (M105, NGC3384 & NGC3389) when looking for M95/96 because all 3 were visible in the same field at 100x. Three of us stayed all night: John?, who has a super neat RC, and another fellow who's name I regret that I did not get. I especially want to thank that fellow because he gave us a cup of hot coffee as we were packing up to leave after daybreak. Really good too. Hope to see everybody again at Sentinel-Schwarr next weekend. Regards, Bill Wood Fountain Hills, AZ -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.