[noeyedeer (Matt)]

thanks for the reply Mental.

I'm in relatively decent dark skies, meaning I can go out in the back yard and and see Omega Centauri within about 30 seconds of looking for it naked eye. The Milky Way is well milky... I'm on a hill with only houses either side which sit below my field of view and theres bush behind the back fence.

Agreed the easterly veiw is a bit washed out but I hardly look that way. I've tried locating Cen A by how you said, using a 40mm ep, I kinda used telrad circles in an app and calculating my eye piece tfov to roughly move from Omega Centauri upwards approximately 1.5 ep lengths and hunting around there for Cen A.

When the weather clears up I shall have another go using your techniques you have recommended. I have 12x50 binos that I use a lot when I think I won't have the time to play with the scope, but I mainly just look around without trying to nail anything, and I havnt tried for a galaxy with them, just clusters and nebs.

I will compare your M8/M20 sketches as that's now coming up over the house at a reasonable time (midnightish) ... I havnt had the chance to view that area this year as yet. But I love all the clusters and nebs around there, so much to see, so little time.

Thanks again Mental!
matt