It's been too long since I got out, so I set up my 8" telescope on the back deck of my house in Novato.
Then waited for nightfall. I kept waiting and waiting. Between the high altitude mess, and the general haze it wasn't until after 9:30 that it got really dark. At 9 the best I could see was about mag 4, by 9:30 it got down to mag 5, and that was only directly overhead.
Given the conditions, it was just bright stuff, no chasing Hickson groups for me tonight :-)
M65/66 showed up easily but poorly distinguished, their faint companion was not to be seen. It really is poor tonight, these are usually a great sight.
NGC 2903 was nicer than either of 65/66, it's quite distinct, hanging off the tip of LEO's nose. The mottling I sometimes see wasn't obvious tonight, but the oval shape and direction were clear.
M95/96/105: tracking these down reminded me that even on the worst of nights it is still fun to look at galaxies. At M105 two galaxies were clearly visible as bright cores with circular/oval fuzziness extending outward. M95/96 were easily seen as a tight compact oval and a more diffuse larger companion. At a little under a degree apart, I can place them both in the FOV of a 21mm Pentax XL (55x)
Moving up from M105 I found NGC 3412 shining nicely, bright enough to cut through the poor seeing, a nice bright core easily distinguished from the field of stars surrounding it.
I had to take a break at about 10pm, and by the time I got back (10:30) things had become much worse, with waves of cloud blocking my view.
Now I'm really looking forward to the weekend, it is supposed to be clear.