A local astronomy club had a "beginner's night" and over 100 people attended wielding all types and sizes of telescopes from long refractors, to cannon-like reflectors, and plenty of Schmidt-Cassegrains thrown in. I saw M27 through the organizer's Astro-Physics 130 GTX refractor and I looked all over the sky with my binoculars. The very bright moon illuminated the sky and a number of the constellations that I hoped to see ended up obscured by the light. One of the event's greeters estimated the site's
Still, for the first time I looked up at the sky and had a general idea of what I saw. The four or so books I've read paid off in the field. I "arced to Arcturus and spiked to Spica," located Vega and Polaris and gazed at many bright moon craters. I hoped to see more, but I'm glad that I went and I plan on attending future meetings.
A mobile phone camera obviously doesn't capture the sharp detail of the view from the 25x70's lenses (which may have been a little out of focus below). Nonetheless, the views of the moon through those binoculars was completely amazing. Copernicus and Tycho just blared out as well as the Sinus Iridum and numerous other craters and sites. A lot of moon gazing occurred.
