It was 9:30 PM by the time I arrived to the maintanace road at Del Valle. There was one pearson (Victor) set-up by the road with an XT 8" dob. So we had no crowed problems like over FP.
I only had the 11x70 binocular and my new Tasco 114mm f4.5 goto telescope with me. After, being impressed with my Tasco GOTO in my light poluted back-yard, I want it to see how good is it under darker skies.
Del Valle's western sky had lot of light polution, but NE, E, and SE was quite good, I judged it for mag 4 or 4.5. There was no clouds and it was T-shirt weather. The milky way didn't show till midnight, when the L.P. lessend.
Two minutes alignment and I was observing. I visited the brighter M object,(easy with computer) M81, 82, 27, 8, 16, 17, 4, 5, 3, 44, and others, M51, 101, 102 could not resolve, looks like, too faint for this aparture. Mars came up after midnight, it was blasing, I was only able to see the snow cap at times, when it moved higher on the sky.
Few weeks ago, when we had colder weather, I was able to see lot more features on Mars with my 3" f/15 Edscorp or my short tube Tasco.
I've been very happy with my first goto telescope even if it's a Tasco. This scope is very portable, everything fits in the aluminium case I bought at Wall Mart, (same what Orion sells), except the long tripod. The OTA is an older Tasco 4.5" f/4.5, Made in Japan, came with a .965 focuser that I replaced to a 1 1/4" so I can use my quality eyepices and filters.
I replaced the 60mm refractor that came with goto mount, with this older OTA, by machining a dovetail for the Dec. Picture .jpg's can be seen at the yahoo/nextar/files/TascoGT area: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nexstar/files/TascoGT/
Scope is very sharp, all though Tasco has a bad reputation being junk, this one is an exception. It split the Double-Double, Castor no problem. Swan and the Trifid nebula showed very nice using the LP filter, able to resolve some of the features. I only get some coma at the edge of field, because the short f/ratio.
I went over Victor and help him to find a few of the M objects by star hoping with his 8" Dob. He was imprest with my Tasco goto, how easy to find things and operate it and sweard he will buy one too. We left after 2am, I had a good time.