Chuck Send the shot anyway, there is mucho power in Photoshop, I sometimes am totally amazed as to the final image look, so let's play w/ your photos.and see if they can be made to look more natural-ish. Aloha Rob PS our next trip up Haleakala to the Kalahaku site (9324') will be the 10th, at that time we'll have a CGE14 w/ St10xe in a Hyperstar configuration, the scope will be 14" @ F1.9 Yee HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the star party last night. It was great. We had only about 40% obscured sky from cloud cover. Jupiter was visible to the west and the summer triangle to the east. We were able to see everything to the south. Scorpius and Sagittarius were particularly clear. We were able to pick out M4 and M8, small globular clusters in Scorpius. M6 and M7, open star clusters between the two constellations, M6 the butterfly cluster was particularly beautiful and it does look just like a butterfly. We were able to see quite a few double stars, even a glimpse of Mizar in the handle of the big dipper, and Epsilon Lyrae, the double double. Unfortunately it was a full moon, so nebulas and galaxies close to the moon were difficult to find. We were able to see M21, an open cluster above Sagittarius, but the Trefid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula right next to this were not found. The moon was beautiful rising with a patch of cloudiness on the horizon in bright orange and yellow colors. When it was past the cloudy patch it seemed to attain a beautiful slightly lime green color I had never seen before. We were able to see all of the surface features of the moon in high contrast, it was a fabulous night to moon gaze. Lisa Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com www.mirrorkits.com