The moon and jupiter

The moon is getting bigger so tonight I decided to set up in the front where the view of the moon and jupiter is best and the light polution greatest in hopes of snagging a 'walk-by' or two. There weren't many walkers out and the ones that were seemed to be more interested in their dog's business so I was left to my own devices. I aligned on Vega and Altair which were both bright in the west and had no problem. I was set up on my Workmate which gives a good solid base but is a bit too high and not perfectly level. No matter, it worked just fine. I used the car to block some of the light from a nextdoor street light and that worked good too. The moon was nice with my 10mm with or without a 2x barlow. I used a green filter to cut some of the light. The trio of Theophilus, Catherina, and Cyrillus were most apparent. It took a bit of getting used to the LR shift between my ETX and my guidebook but it worked out ok. I was also able to make out Posidonius. Several much smaller craters were also visible but I did not attempt to identify them tonight. I also checked out Jupiter and was able to see all four moons with my 10mm ep at 35x. There were no other stars nearby in the FOV.
All in all I called the night a success and quit as the moon was slipping behind a palm tree across the street.
Last night we were driving back from Zapata through McCook and stopped just north of McCook. We were able to see the milky way and make out most of Perseus but the entire southern sky was washed out due to skyglow from McAllen and Mission lights.

Beaten back by M74

M74 in Pisces is starting to become a monster. I've been out several times with my ETX70 with no luck. I can find the spot without a problem but can't quite make out even a hint of M74, a very dim galaxy. I suspect light polution is the culprit but still haven't found a good dark site. I was able to see about 30 stars from my backyard observatory tonight. It was cool, clear, with no wind after a light rain earlier today so the seeing was pretty good. I saw about 30 stars in M45 which was also visible unaided in the eastern sky. The field around M74 in my 27 mm ep consists of a fairly bright parallelogram with Eta Psc forming one corner and a dim pair of stars including 104 Psc the opposite corner. 101 Psc and HR457 form the other two corners. Eta Psc is in line with a pair of 7th mag stars and I was able to barely make out a couple of 8th mag stars in the field. I convinced myself that I was able to occasionally make out a pinpoint of light in the vicinity of where I knew M74 lay but no hint of a glow.
M33 was also elusive although I was able to see it previously in Rolla with my 8" dob.

Double Cluster in Perseus

I stumbled upon this pretty open cluster by just slewing my ETX70 into a dark area of the sky toward the north. The 'identify' function said it was NGC884, part of the double cluster. At first it looked like two or three open clusters with a 'tail' of about 6 or 7 stars. The fuzzy on the left looked like a circle of dim stars. Very nice with my 27mm ep. The other fuzzy is NGC869. Stock 2 is nearby but I didn't look for it as I was unaware until I saw it in CdC after shutting down for the night.
M31 was nice and a bit larger with no moon but still pretty dim in the ETX. Uranus and Jupiter had all slipped too far west by the time I had the scope setup so I missed the planets tonight. M45 was high and bright, even with no scope. Lots of stars were visible including all of Casseopia's 'W'. Not a bad night at all. Nice 69 F, clear, moonless evening in south Texas.