My 'supplementary' comments to Mooey's observation report are as follows:
It rained earlier during the day time, thus dew was a serious problem. My 30mm LE keep dewing up, I had to keep it inside my pocket when not in use to keep it warm. Richard was having lots of fun with his new dew heater. I guess he can comment on how well it worked later.
On the first night (Friday, 8 Jul 05), the dew condition was very bad. In fact, before I had finish setting up my scope, dew had already formed on my groundsheet! And by the end of the night, water was constantly dripping off my OTA onto the groundsheet!! Fortunately the three 8-inch scopes all have effective dew heaters, otherwise the telescope observations will have to end within the first half hour.
Richard’s dew heater failed due to his battery running flat.
One of the equipment I tested that night was the DewBuster controller & Dew-Not Dew Removers for the c8 corrector plate, 7x50 STCI finderscope w/illuminator, Telrad & 2" eyepiece. This setup worked perfectly, with the dew heater temperature set at 4 deg C (initially 10 deg C) above the ambient temperature. Due to the heavy dew after 10 hours of usage, the controller automatically shut off the heat to the corrector plate once the voltage dropped below 10.5 volts (This is a built-in safety feature to prevent damage to the battery), though the other auxilary heaters were still working. The battery used was a Vixen PowerStation (SLA battery) rated at 7Ah.
Richard seems to be having lots of fun on his c8, esp on m8 with his filter. I went over and took a look, oh mine, what a big piece.
Yes, the 2" Orion Ultrablock filter worked very well with the 2" 1rpd 30mm eyepiece on the C8, showing the magnificent M8 lagoon nebula almost to the edge of the field of view, and the distinctive M17 Swan Nebula was clearly defined like an extended number "2".
Together with the f/6.3 reducer/corrector, the 30mm 1rpd showed some edge vignetting, but otherwise, the following nebulae were clearly revealed with the Ultrablock filter:
Veil Nebula (NGC 6960) - south of the star 52 Cyg, the sinuous "s" portion quite clearly defined; portion of neb. north of 52 Cyg just visible with averted vision. Without the filter, the sine curve was just barely perceptible;
Veil Nebula (NGC 6992) - bright thin crescent shape with distinctive edge seen within the field of view, like the celestial smile of a chesire cat);
North American Nebula (NGC 7000) - faint but the edge is quite defined, esp. around the "Gulf of Mexico";
Pelican Nebula (IC 5067) - just subtly visible with direct vision, edge undefined.
On the 2nd night, I lent my finderscope (the Celestron quick-release finder bracket was able to be secured to the Meade finder bracket base - amazing!) & my battery to Kochu (he had 3 batteries but insufficient connectors for his goto mount, dew heaters & laptop) and allowed Mooey to have full use of my groundsheet for his Portaball (On the previous night, the Portaball and the C8/Giro2dx/counterweight both require a wide radius of rotation and thus the two scopes sometimes almost clashed on the groundsheet). So I did not set up my C8 on the 2nd night but borrowed some 'telescope time' from Mooey instead.
Moon looks somehow nice, very thin piece of it. Richard noticed that both the bright and dark part of the moon can be easily seen. I saw the same thing too. Could it be the earthshine or something else?
Yes, the mare on the dark side were clearly visible (lit by earthshine) on the Portaball with the 30mm Tak LE.
First object was m65 and m66, 2 galaxies at the triangle of leo. 2 bright fuzzy patch could be seen. There was another dimmer fuzzy patch in the field. I’m not too sure what object that is, maybe Richard can add on later.
We saw M65, M66 & NGC 3628, three galaxies in one field of view with the 1rpd.
Next object was m51 in ursa major. I have found this object yesterday. 2 bright dots could be seen. I felt that I can make out a little of the shape of the galaxy, although I couldn’t really see the dust lanes. I think Richard mention that he could see the supernova. I did not really know what to look for. Next object was m101, another galaxy in ursa major. I could make out the shape, but once again, the dust lanes aren’t visible.
I saw hints of the spiral structure within M51 & M101, but I was just kidding about seeing the supernova in M51.
Richard suggested that we go for veil. Kochu pressed veil on his autostar, but there was nothing. Richard took a look thru the finder and said that there’s 2 piece of the veil, the autostar kinda pointed the scope to the region in between the 2 pieces, thus nothing can be seen. Richard put on the ultrablock filter on the 30mm 1rpd eyepiece. Big chunks of the veil could be seen. If only we have a wider scope.
When Kochu said he could not see the Veil Neb with the Ultrablock filter, I took a look and I realised that the Autostar was pointing at the sky between NGC 6960 & 6992 and both objects were just out of view. This happened when Kochu searched for Veil Neb under "objects". When I ask him to search individually using the NGC nos, the Autostar pointed correctly at the specific targets.
We went for m27 after that. A nice looking football. I thought that I could make out some colour. Kochu did mention that the middle part is supposed to be green and the outer part is suppose to be red.
On close observation of M27 Dumbell Neb on the 8" f/4 schmidt newtonion with the Ultrablock filter, I could see ten faint stars, including the central star, embedded within the nebulosity. There did seemed to be hints of some subtle difference in colour and intensity on different portions of the two lobes, though the actual colour itself is not obvious.
On both nights, the Milky Way was very bright and clearly visible and it extended from one horizon up to the zenith and down to the opposite horizon. Clearly visible too were the two dark rifts within the Milky Way, located within the constellation of Scorpius & Cygnus.
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." 
