During my stay in South Africa I was unlucky due to cloudy nights but 2 weeks ago there was an exceptionally clear night in a dark location near the Kruger Park (Hazyview, 25S, 31E). I took a photo of the LMC at 3200 ASA 12 frames each only 8 sec steady camera, EOS 7 with 85mm f/1.8 squeezed to f/2.5.
http://skysurfer.eu/skypics4/large/lmc20130202.jpg
Now I am in Southbroom KZN (30.9S, 30.2E) where were many cloudy days and nights. Last night there was a good clear night in which I observed many objects.
Today noon I looked up Mercury and Achernar. Both were clearly visible with the 10cm Televue Genesis using a Nagler 13T6 (38x) despite it was noon with the Sun being 72 degrees high.