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Hi Mark,
These two are my favourites for picking up some "galaxy time" namely the Leo Triplet and the Sombrero.
For the Leo Triplet, you find Saturn and look down to the star at the "tail" of the lion, from there, if you move "up and to the right" halfway from the start star to the other brightish naked eye star with your dob, you should see a dark area devoid of any bright stars (as indicated on the attached pic), with a 20mm or 15mm eyepiece, you should be able to see the THREE galaxies of M65, M66 and NGC 3628 in the same field of view, VERY cool.
My other favourite is quite easy to find quickly, the M104 Sombrero galaxy.
Find Corvus (the crow) and you should see SPICA, the bright 0.95 magnitude star in Virgo below it towards the East. If you split the distance between the two and then go "about 45 degrees from each point to the LEFT, you should see some fairly distinctive stars as shown in the second attached pic, namely one group of triple stars side by side. The Sombrero is in the middle of this group.
Obviously skyglow and moonlight affect what you see, but I can generally pick these out in the suburbs up to about 75% moonlight in the 12".
Make sure you use the Finderscope to HOME in on the areas, which is what I do, because I can recognise the patterns as to what I am looking for.
Give it a go when the moon wanes some more and see how you go.
Cheers
Chris
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