Hey Scott,

Well... Getting away from lights will certainly help but, in a lot of cases
you just need a 100" scope. :-)

A couple of things you can do are: make sure your scope is tuned up for max
performance. Collimate your optics. Get the slop out of your focuser, see
the mapug archives and Doc G's site.

A focal reducer will decrease image size, but help with brightness. A
broadband light pollution filter may be a good investment for you.

How are your skies up there? Seems like the Seattle area always has lots of
weather moving through.

You can't expect to see through the eyepiece what you see in magazines and
books, that's the brutal bottom line. In most cases, not even close, that's
probably why many of us do imaging of one kind or another.

M 42 should reveal lots of detail. You should be able to see dust lanes in
M31. M57 is small, but fairly bright. M27 is always a pleasant surprise,
dust lane in M64 and NGC 4565 too.
Most of the open and globular clusters are going to look great in your
scope, most diffuse nebulae and galaxies may disappoint you.

Hang in there, revel in the beauty of the universe and be patient at the
eyepiece.

Alan



>>>While the moon and planets are great. M42 is OK (pretty cool) and well
M31 looks like a smudge...other galaxies and nebula are not even visible.

Someone please encourage me...tell me that its a whole different world when
you get it out in the sticks....please help. I want to see some cool
stuff...tell me it will be more than a smudgy...out of focus q-tip.<<<

Thanks

Scott


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