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Nice story Suzy!
I had a wonderful view of M104 from Heathcote last month using my 16", the galaxy filled a fair bit of the field at 150x: and the dust band was wonderfully crisp, with the glow from the 'underside' bulge quite distinct. Magnificent, dominating the field, and decidedly 'bright' around the nucleus as galaxies go. Almost felt like viewing a photo in some ways! Didn't see any colour but my eyes aren't so good at that. It was visible as a smudge in the 30mm finder.
A few weeks later from Melbourne suburbs with the same scope, and the galaxy was, as you'd expect, significantly fainter and smaller. Had to hop to it from the north of Corvus. This time the dust band was much less sharp at the edges, though still with a little width to it; the galaxy appeared noticeably smaller, and there was not much sign of the glow of the lower part of the bulge. Still an impressive view, given the size, structure and brightness of the galaxy, but not as field-filling or brightly imposing as a dark-sky view.
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