At last, the drought ended. Officially, I hadn't observed since 5/21, and that was a brief half-hour. Last night, I got up as the finale concluded for the fireworks and went out for 1.75 hours. I'd like to say that conditions were great, that finding things was easy, and that it was altogether AGNFA, but that would miss the mark. Haze really impacted the view (and no, it wasn't leftovers from the fireworks.) M9 was nearly invisible – it took 120X just to tease it out of the skyglow to my south. I pulled out the Cat's Eye Nebula without any trouble – very bright even from the city. It looked more "ghostly" without a filter, but there was no hint of the central star with or without the filter. After an hour of hunting with some new charts, I decided to give the computer a go and it led me to M10, M12, M71, M13 and 92. M13 showed the famous "arms" quite well – it was very near the zenith.
I turned in just before the clouds made a serious dent in the sky. Jupiter hadn't quite cleared the Elm tree that effectively blocks my southern skies, so I missed a chance to catch "The King." Perhaps another night.