Hey,
As a Newbie as well with an 8 inch Dob, if found that star hopping to limit the search size for faint of high mag objets has worked pretty well for me. There are heaps of threads on making your own altzumith circles for a Dob base, and I thnik the Alt function is taken care of by an object commonly known as a Inclinometer, which I belive you can get from trade/hardware suppliers.
I've asked around my local hardware places though and no-one seems to have any idea of what I'm talking about. Try getting to know how to use the various star maps and planisperes and be like the proverbial kangaroo and hop to it!
Take it easy.
Darren
