Keep in mind that when you do see andromeda with an 8-inch telescope, it's not going to look like much through an eyepiece (a fuzzy oval) even from a very dark site. M81/M82 is a pair of galaxies that can be quite nice through an amateur telescope - again two faint fuzzy elliptical patches of light, but if you have a wide enough field of view you can see both at once which is kind of neat, they're in Ursa Major and would be best seen this time of year in the evening. I know a lot of people have strong opinions on this, but I personally think that with an 8" scope things like star clusters and double stars are really a lot more interesting to look at than galaxies. M13 and M5 are a couple of striking globular clusters that will be rising in the evening this time of year. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>