Since I got a late start (as usual for me) I went to Montebello instead of Dino Tuesday night and brought Monty, my 9.25 inch SCT instead of the 14.5" monstrous SJAA loaner scope.
Conditions were very good. An inversion layer set in making Montebello much darker, warmer and clearer than it was at the bottom of the hill. Dew was not an issue.
Jay Freeman and Jim Feldhouse were the only others there.
It was a good night for unexpected new objects. When I popped down to NGC 2477, low in Puppis, Jay suggested NGC 2451 nearby which I had never seen.. 2477 was as pretty as I've ever seen it and 2451 was a nice contrast, a bright scattered cluster.
My 9.25 inches could not capture NGC 2713 in Hydra. I was able to locate NGC 2903 in Leo, a bright galaxy with obvious structure. I thought it looked like a Messier galaxy and later read in the NSOG that it's one of the brighter objects Messier missed.
This was the first time I really discerned Hydra as a constellation (rather than simply an irregular patch of sky with some cool objects in it). I stopped by NGC 3242, the Ghost of Jupiter planetary nebula, which was a nice contrast in color and brightness from the galaxies and clusters I was looking at. It was annular, but I did not see the central star.
I had looked at a field of three galaxies in Leo in Jim's 16 inch dob, but I was surprised to see the same field when I hopped up to M105. The others were NGC 3384 and 3389, two "volunteer" galaxies that were not on my target list. I later saw a nice picture of the field in the NSOG. Now I wonder how I missed these guys when looking at M95 in the same scope last spring.
Other nice sights were M46, with the embedded planetary quite obvious withoot a filter, the M65/66 NGC 3628 field which I could see simultaneously with my 2" diagonal and 40 mm Optiluxe combo and the always entertaining M67 and M42. I did not make out either the Flame or Rosette nebulae however.