M108 and M97

Tonight started out clear, dry, cool, and still. This was the first clear night after returning from south Texas so I decided to haul out the old 8" dob and try out my new pocket field guide from S&T. UMa was high and bright in the northeast so I decided to try for a couple of Messiers that I haven't found before: M108 and M97. Both were near Merak or Beta UMa and pretty high for the dob. After fiddling with the red dot for awhile, I finally got it positioned on Merak, and doubled checked the alignment by slewing over to Mizar. I was right on target and was able to split Mizar's close companion easily. It looked like M97 was near a little 'hockey stick' asterism according to the field guide and I was able to find that in my 9x50 finder ok. I switched to my 25mm ep and, bingo, there was M97. It looked like a fairly large fuzzy round blob. It kept dissapearing on me as some clouds had started to move through. Next I started searching for M108. It looked like it was near a three star right triangle, a bit closer to Merak and I eventually found it, a nice but dim cigar shaped galaxy. The field guide was hard to see in my red light and when I used a regular flashlight, it was hard to see the DSO's right away. It worked ok for comparing to my 9x50 and would probably work just fine with binoculars or in the valley but nothing beats CdC for use with my dob. I compared the star field I saw near M108 and it was right on with CdC. The 'hockey stick' asterism was plain enough for confirming M97. I also played around with my new green laser and was surprised to find that I could see it easily in my 9x50. I could see it ok in my 25mm ep but it looked odd since the magnification was much higher.
Earlier this evening I used my old 60mm refractor to get a glimpse at Venus and Mercury just after sunset. I don't have a good clear view of the west from my deck so I had to move to the front yard but was able to see both with my 27mm ep. Both appeared as round shapes with no apparent crescent shape. Mercury is almost at the same altitude as Venus today.