Fun with the ETX70

The last few nights have been clear with no moon but the last few Messier objects I'm missing aren't visible yet so I decided to see what the ETX could do with a dark sky. It does better than in Texas but galaxies are still a challenge. I was able to see a couple of globular clusters ok but even M83, the brightest galaxy I tried, was visible as only the slightest smear in my eyepiece. M3 and M92 GCs were fine.
First off, I had to find north and found out that 75 degrees of altitude is the right setting for the north star at my latitude in Rolla. I used a small wooden stool from the shop as a table and after leveling it was off and running.
Limiting magnitude is about 9, even at my Rolla home. I checked this by sketching the field around Alchiba, Alpha Corvus, and comparing to CdC.
The ETX works fine with my pocket sky atlas. I could easily see all of the stars in the atlas and then some. I found out though that there is quite a limit to the ETX's database. It seems that some entirely useless objects are there and other brighter objects are not. For example, guided tour tries to point out several galaxies which would not be visible but NGC5466, a globular cluster, was not. I'll need to find the RA,Dec for the NGC's and other objects I want to look at and have them ready next time. I also need to get the ETX70 working with CdC.
Both nights were dry with about 55% humidity, temp in the 60's, light breeze.