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Hey there Tim,
As you are aware, light pollution makes the sky brighter, washing out the stars. When you look through a scope under these conditions, the background skyglow too is brighter, washing out faint stars and details, and reducing contrast.
This makes things difficult, but not impossible.
There are some tricks that help:
*Increasing magnification darkens the background skyglow, helping bring out faint details
*Learn to use 'averted vision', the region that is most sensitive to light in our eyes surrounds our central vision. By looking just to the side of the object & keeping it there engages this more sensitive area of our vision, bringing out more detail. It takes a little practice, but quickly becomes second nature.
*Jiggling the scope stimulates our eyes that are most effective at detecting motion rather than a static light source.
*Filters only help if the objects you are looking at are nebulae. The reason being that these objects glow in very specific colours of light. These filters transmit these narrow range colours, absorbing the rest, darkening skyglow and better revealing the gas details. These filters are no good for any other type of object, such as galaxies and globular clusters, as they glow across the entire spectrum of light, not just the narrow range of nebulae.
I had a mate over last year at my place in Sydney's Maroubra, with his 8" dob, and my 17.5" dob side by side. Every galaxy seen in the big dob was also visible in his 8". Off cause, not as bright, but definately there. Where my scope showed 7 moons around Saturn, his showed 5. Pretty good I reckon.
Before you get a scope, try to get to an astro gathering, either with an astro club, or one of the many social sessions in and around Sydney listed in the Star Parties forum. You will see many different types of scopes, sizes, mounts, sophistication and budgets.
I, with a mate, Hickny, often do sessions at Randwick Girls' High School, which are often with not much more than a couple of days notice. You'd be welcome to join us there too, scope or no scope, it doesn't matter.
Mental.
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