Just realized too by looking through images on the internet, it wasn't Centaurus A I was looking at, it was NGC 4945, my first non milky way spiral galaxy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_4945.jpg
I couldn't figure out why what I was looking at was a long cigar shaped kind of thing, and all the images that I'd seen of Centaurus A showed an eliptical with a dust lane across it.
It further demonstrates how much more practice I need navigating too
Hmm...I'm sure some high quality televue eyepieces would help me with this, I'll have to ask my better half
regards
Ant