Hi Craig
Sounds like you are almost on it!
Yes, head a bit out of town - towards the North East/East so Corvus/Virgo are over dark country.
My skymap to M104 is post #11 in this thread:-
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=28880
I was looking at M104 last night from my Melbourne backyard. Visible in direct vision, averted vision picked up more including the dust lane. (But I was using 12" of mirror!)
Eric