Many thanks to Bruce Grim & SLAS for the impromptu MarsWatch Saturday morning, and Patrick for helping spread the word. I watched the fat gibbous moon set as I drove out on I-80. Since 205 is shut-down, my drive time to Stansbury has increased, but still not too bad at three in the morning. Several people were already there, Patrick's Brandt refractor on the "big" mount tracking faithfully. Surface details were readily seen, both with and without a red filter. The polar cap, melt line, and Syrtis Major were prominent. Patrick punched-up the S&T Mars Profiler on the computer, and verified the position of Syrtis Major. A light blue filter did nothing to improve detial, but to my eye reduced glare a bit. A light green filter was marginally better. The red filter effectively eliminated the residual chromatic abberation of the big objective, and I overheard a conversation between two red-green colorblind individuals who both saw more detail with the red filter. The seeing was only poor-to-fair. The air was in constant motion, clouds dogged the planet and only intermittant viewing was possible. You had to stare for a minute or longer, at times, for the image to steady-up enough for a crisp instant, then mentally examine the afterimage in your mind. The atmosphere is always the biggest impediment to high-quality views of Mars and this was a reminder, as I know the Brandt to be capable of exquisite imagery. The atmosphere wouldn't support very high magnifications. Even in the spaces between the opaque clouds, semi-transparent mist obscured the planet. The turbulence of the atmosphere was demonstrated by an amazing "wave" cloud that had formed over the Ochre mountains just to our east, illuminated from the ground by light pollution. Lightning miles distant to the north nevertheless illuminated the observatory as brilliantly as day, with brief, periodic flashes. I had the 20x80mm binos on the parallelogram, looking at whatever happened to be in the sucker holes. With the 25x100mm binos on a tripod, several of us got a look at M13, not more than a few degrees above the horizon and buried in the ground haze, yet still glorious. M57 was readily seen in the 25x100mm binos by myself and Bruce (anybody else see the Ring in there?). The Pleiades were stunning in both binos, and Mars actually showed as an obvious disk! I saw a bright meteor in the 80mm binos, probably an early Persied judging from direction of travel. Adjourned to the truck stop about 5 for refreshment, debriefing, and a chance to count mosquito bites. It was great to meet some of you face-to-face. I had a fun time despite being half asleep! Even "Touring the Universe on Crutches" author Glen Warchol made an appearance, as well as former SLAS president Siegfried, with sibling in-tow. Gotta do this again soon, hope for better seeing! Chuck __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com