Got a look at the stars tonight, started about 8:30.  Sort of ran my own Messier Marathon.  I was able to pick off M-35, 42, 43, and 40 before the clouds became impossible.  Wasted some time on M1, but was never able to see it.  Great views of Jupiter and Mars.  I was using my 4.5 inch reflector.  I have the scope in almost perfect collimation.  I'm using the so-called Barlowed collimation method and would be glad to explain it if you aren't familiar with the technique.  I also recently purchased 18 and 5 mm Celestron X-Cel LX eyepieces which I have found to be a really good match with the 4.5 reflector.  In these eyepieces stars are shap points across pretty much the entire field of view.  There is only very, very slight coma near the edge of the field of view.