The galaxy Centaurus A was my first Galaxy, I found star-hopping with my 10" DOB.
I start at Hadar (Beta Centaurus - the "pointer" closest to the Southern Cross)) and star hop to Epsilon Centaurus, then its
equal distance straight line hops to the Bright Cluster (Omega Centauri) and then to Cent. A. See the chart attached that Wade posted a while back taken off Starry Night.
I used a red dot finder to position the scope where I thought it should be roughly. Then was able to spot it though my 9x50 finder scope. And with a low magnification eyepiece (27mm), there it was.
And this was from my own backyard.
Problems are:
1. It doesn't come up till about 11pm at the moment.
2. You have no chance with the current bright nearly full moon.
But one to save for better conditions.
When you find it, it should look a bit like this (photo posted by graham.hobart in May 2011)
Thread HERE