Whether I have the knowledge or not... whether I know how to work the equipment or not... whether I know what I am doing or not... the weather was great. Clear skies and a warm breeze made for a great night.

The scope was set up in just a few minutes, then it was off to the races. ...but not so fast. First stop: Mars. Mars never got high enough to be away from the city lights. The disk was visible, but the detail was washed out from the lights and heat of the night. This photo is the best of the bunch. But it took a while. Sorry, to the folks that were hanging out waiting for me to go through yet another learning experience.

Mars

On to the deep sky... M11, M5, M8, M57, M101, M18 all were clear enough to see. The ND filter worked well on the nebulae, but the ALP was better. The detail that was seen on the Eagle Nebula was truly spectacular. I stopped counting at 50, the number of people peering at these objects through the scope. It's always nice to share. There were plenty of smiles and exclamations.

No problems so far? Think again. ...for some reason the scope and the software weren't lined up quite right. The software was slewing the scope to the wrong places. Some times it worked, other times it didn't. I thought it was an alignment problem. Apologies to the folks waiting to see something good as I worked out the problems. Which, embarrassing enough, was that I had entered the wrong date into the software. It was a day ahead of the scope.(g)

The fix occurred right about when the crowd thinned out. So, I tried a new target: Uranus. Perfect! There were a few people still milling about and we all enjoyed some planetary conversation.

The evening on the mountain ended with another run through the Messier's only to start again at my apartment. I retreated to home base and re-set up the scope... and the real fun began...

Saturn was stellar!! The Cassini division was visible. The spherical nature of the planet was clear. Helping the vision was the shadow of the plant itself on the backside of the rings. I quickly jumped to using the camera and found the 6.5mm eyepiece to be a good choice for power and clarity. However, I still cannot get down the focusing control needed to get the image in focus in the camera. The focal length differences between the scope and the camera make for a pain. I'll have to research better focusing techniques. Picture One: was taken with a 1/8 second exposure with no filter. Picture Two: was taken at 1/8 of second with an ND filter. Picture Three: also at 1/8 of a second, with a #8 filter, I also used the camera's digital zoom to get 1.6x closer. Out of focus, but I'm still learning. The detail through the eyepiece was 50x more detail than these photos.

Saturn-no filter

Saturn-ND filter

Saturn-#8 filter

Attention switch... to Jupiter. Six moons were visible and clear. The banding was crisp and the Spot almost viewable. The planet was still low on the horizon, but I snapped some photos. Still having a focusing problem. Same drill as with Saturn. Picture One: was taken with a 1/8 second exposure with no filter. Picture Two: was taken at 1/8 of second with an ND filter. Picture Three: also at 1/8 of a second, with a #8 filter, I also used the camera's digital zoom to get 1.6x closer.

Jupitor-no filter

Jupitor-ND filter

Jupitor-#8 filter

As I noticed that it was 4:30am, I also noticed that Venus has its landing lights on. What a beautiful site! Still low on the horizon and very fuzzy, but the disk presents itself in between the haze. No photos taken.

I ended the night at about 5am with a sharp clear view of the Orion Nebula. The filters really work well to bring out the detail. The #8, surprisingly, brought out a lot of detail.

Thanks to all that helped me over the evening. And hello to all I talked to. I was a bit heads down and still running through my own learning curve, but enjoyed talking with all the people I met. I look forward to seeing you all again real soon.