Managed to get out for half an hour with my astronomy club’s home made scope ‘ The Hexascope’. Conditions were not perfect, but the seeing was OK. My log reads

Meade Series 4000 26mm Plössl, 48x

First Deep Sky views with the Hexascope.Visible extent of Galaxy covers just under one eyepiece worth – about 1 degree.  A bright core is tight and small except with averted vision where it seems to grow and resemble a very tight Globular cluster and very granular. The outer spiral is very flat at less than 15′ thick. 

Oddly enough neither M32 or M101 was visible!!! Moon starting to rise above the horizon by end of session.

Scope is nicely balanced and is easy to move in both Alt and Az, yet has enough stiction so scope doesn’t move when using the focuser. 

The lack of a finder scope yet,  was a pain,  so had to aim the scope like a gun and sweep the area till I found what I was looking for.