Actually, it was my first night out with a telescope, period. Location:
north Scottsdale. Suburban skies, and clear. The seeing conditions seemed
better
in the east for some reason, so I kept my observing in the back patio. This
dob, a Hardin, came with two eyepieces. The 2" is pretty nice, and I have
no complaints yet. The 1.25 9mm is pretty shoddy. There is some black
stuff
encroaching over the lens. I wonder if I can flick it off with a needle.
This
e.p. probably isn't worth shipping back for replacement. This dob has the
new
crayford focuser, which is supposed to be a good thing:-)

I have dreamed of seeing M31. From what I have read, I knew enough to find
it. After searching and searching with the 2" in the area to the left of
the "Great Square", I finally noticed a smudge of light that was in stark
contrast to surrounding collection of stars in my field of view. I put the
9mm in to get a closer look, and the smudge got a bit bigger, but by no
means did it give me a detailed view of a galaxy.
I strongly assume this is M31 anyways. How can I make the most of this? 7mm
Televue Plossl with a good 3x Barlow? The 9mm gave me a 140x mag. and this
doesn't seem optimal for M31. People say that M31 is visible with the naked
eye, which could suggest that light pollution in north Scottsdale is worse
than I think. I never did find it again later that night.

Later that night (morning), I noticed an interesting cluster with my naked
eyes, and set my bino's on it. Pleiades! I had never seen that formation
magnified before. I stayed up the whole night to see Saturn and Venus, but
by 5 a.m. clouds had set in:-( I did get a brief break in the clouds to see
a bright object with the binos, dead east. It was disky, like a planet, and
very bright, but no rings. Venus I assume.

-Tom