Brent, nice report. You might want to consider some daytime viewing of Venus. Views are stunning no matter what aperture you use, especially at the current phase. Should work even from Auckland when she's riding nice and high. I watched the recent inferior conjunction mid afternoon from Franz Josef through the 8" dob
. Not my preference (the frac would have been better) but worked very well, partly because it wasn't a particularly close conjunction this time. Views were crisp.