Galaxy !!
Currently my northern aspect is a bit bare of targets and I've been concentrating on the SMC/47 Tuc region thanks to Paddys Charts. Then we've had about 10 days of wet, wind and of course, cloud.
But unexpectedly it cleared last night and was clear and cold, quite good seeing so I got the big scope out and fired up Stellarium to look for 'thingies in space'. Looking for a change I spotted a few Nebs, M2, M15 but they were all getting low in the west, my tree covered view. Then a wee yellow circle popped up, NGC 253, Sculptor Galaxy. High in the NE 37, 72 at about 9:30. Did a Nth/Sth base level and alignment using Jupiter at 8:47, due Nth exactly and when it got a bit darker started hunting. I discovered that if you read your dec settings right it is much easier, search out by 10 degrees doesn't work !!
About 9:45 after much running back and fowards to my PC ( must sort the lappie out !!) I swept across it. A dull smear of grey squeezed up by a wee triangle of stars.
Technical details:
10" f5 with 20mm GSO wide view, 25mm and 12 mm Plossls.
Seeing about 4, quite stable after the recent colder weather, Transparency about 3 or slightly better.
Core became apparent as I viewed, disk tilted at about 15 degrees off vertical in a clockwise dirn. HIP 3706 at lower left with its other stars forming a triangle. Upper part of the disk was softly visible out to almost HIP 3745 but the lower lobe was very faint by comparison. I was easily seeing down to mag 11.7 and could pick up two other occluded stars (?) through the disk on either side of the core.
The 12mm gave a closer but much dimmer view and the 25 mm plossl was very clear.
Being only 20 degrees off the elliptic it tracked very fast, one of the reasons it was hard to find (catch !!). It was at about 352 west by the time I'd done, I'd found it at 2 degrees east after getting lost.
I viewed for about 45 mins, did a diagram/sketch and finished the evening about 10:30 quite pleased with myself.
PDF of sketch attached,
Not sure how others do it and might be useful for newbies ( like myself ) to know but the base levelling and star alignment for Nth/Sth helps immensely with getting the setting circles working. I've been trying to get it right with a compass and a GPS but a timed star alignment works excellently. I'm also going to add a simple inclinometer to the side of the UTA for quick easy reference. Learning all the time eh ?
And another comment. Getting real used to finding things better with the bins and scope. I took the rubbish down to the street late last night ( long driveway ) and took the bins with me. On the way back swung them up at SMC and found 47 Tuc without even trying.
And a question. I scanned the bins down over LMC region as well and spotted quite a large globular cluster. Very similar in size to 47 Tuc but dimmer, not so well defined. But when I checked Stellarium in that region I could not fnd any cluster that approached what I saw. I realise that Stellarium is not totally accurate in what you see but this was quite distinct in it's dense globular form. Any one got any clues, comments ?
Jen, Eta Carina is the Star,NGC 3372 is the nebula.
). Thank you for sharing your report with us. I saw this using Ron's 16", but the weather since has not permitted me my first view of it through my 10". 
I'm am so eager to catch this on again. But Andromeda, oh my goodness, how good is that one! 
, especially if I put a laughing emoticon next to it like this 
