As per Jay Freeman's request, a few additional comments about my Pluto
observation. As I mentioned, I used a chart made by Bill Ferris prepared
using MegaStar. This had the GSC stars plus little circles for Pluto's
location each night for several nights around the weekend. Presumably a chart
that shows about a 1-degree field using any similar package would work just as
well. The field itself, as Tom and Jane have mentioned, is easy to find near
20 Oph, and Pluto is presently cruising by a little string of somewhat brighter
stars; there is no profusion of faint Milky Way stars at the moment, which
could make things tougher, and certainly will in coming years as ther planet
passes in front of the galactic center.
In terms of technique, I would say the main thing with 2.7-inches aperture
is _patience_. Part of this is certainly due to my not having been doing much
visual deep-sky observing in several years, so I am definitely out of practice.
Pluto was down at the 5-percent detection level for me, so the several glimpses
I had required having my eye optimally-averted and having that location on the
retina pass over the right spot, which I did not know except to within an
arcminute or two radius in a 50' field. As a left-eyed person, I seem to
naturally prefer averting above and somewhat left of the target, although the
plots in Roger Clark's book suggest _below_ and left should be more sensitive.
I did use this location, too, but never saw Pluto there. (Right-eyed persons
should look above/below-and-right.) As mentioned, high power (95x = ~0.8mm
exit pupil) was required: at 75x the threshold was a few tenths of a magnitude
brighter on stars, and that makes a difference for an observation like this.
Such relatively high magnification is not required with larger apertures since
Pluto will be easier to see. When I look through the eyepiece I keep both eyes
open, but cover the right one entirely with my cupped hand, and shield the
other so that no extraneous light is visible. At Anderson Mesa of course there
are no local lights, so the brightest thing is the sky itself.
A lot of the "looking" consisted of simply keeping track of the nearest
field stars while waiting for Pluto to pop out. The faintest of the line of
three north of the planet was also a threshold object, and only one of the two
faint GSC stars immediately south was discernable. At such low light levels
your eye has really bad positional acuity, so this latter star in particular
had to be found each time to distinguish it from Pluto. It seems you can't
just make it come into view (at least I can't), so the only thing to do is
wait, breathe steadily, and keep bringing the eye back to the optimally-averted
spot (there's no holding it truly steady). I certainly couldn't have done this
with people standing around, since a quiet Zen-like concentration or
'centeredness' is required. I did, however, have the Tokyo concert from Keith
Jarrett's "Sun Bear Concerts" box going rather quietly on the dome CD player
inside (not the conclusion of that disc, luckily). Normally I don't listen to
any music when deep-sky observing, since the two activities have a similar
attraction for my mind.

\Brian