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My main difficulty was bringing Venus up to the Moon.  Even with a couple of shades in, with the 2.5x telescope, when I eventually got it there, I lost Venus in the glare around the edge of the Moon.  Also, my arm got very tired; I need to toughen up.  I could see the surface of the moon better with the 5x inverting telescope, but they were designed for someone with better coordination than me; everything happens back to front; and by that time Venus had disappeared behind the trees in any case.  DaveP

I did not use a telscope or sighting tube - just looked through the mounting ring. This gave me more light and with a wider field of view it was easier to locate the objects. I could see the outline of the horizon mirror with the clear and silvered parts distinguishable. Sometimes I had to use the silvered half - when taking sun sights I just use the clear half.

I did not use any shades and did not find the moon too bright.

I took the moon down to Venus.  Venus was easy to see through the horizon mirror. I found it easier to have the brightest object in the index mirror as the reflected image was the hardest to find if the sextant wobbled. Several times I had to set the sextant to zero and bring the moon down again.

Sometimes there was some haze next to the limb, other times the limb was reasonably sharp. I do not know the reason.