Hi Liz, fabulous report!
I can't wait to have a go at W. Orionis - It's been on my to-do list for a while, along with Ruby Crucis.
Regarding M1 (The Crab Nebula), I had my first go at trying to get it in my last session. As we have the same sized scope, it be interested in how it appears in yours - is it feint & small? I'm taking it that maybe the seeing affects whether it's there or not. I tried for about half an hour to find it and I thought to myself at the time, how hard could this be as its only about a degree away zeta tauri.
But difficult it was. Perhaps it's easily affected by the seeing after all
