We had Jeff and Gerarda, Barb, and myself at Eagle Bluff last night. Darn near perfect conditions most of the night. Barb was knocking off some Orion and Canus Major Messiers. Jeff had his new 'Aperture' Dob out there and it was performing well. Apparently I bumped my Evo mirror around alot on the way down so my collimation was quite good for sharp views. Of course my laser collimator runs out of battery power, so I had to accept somewhat fuzzy views. (But I emptied out Home Depot's 357 watch batteries supply this morning).
The parking lot was bare and the EB staff was kind enough to snuff the lights out for us around 7pm. About 8pm a youth minister strolled out asking if he could bring his teenagers up from the campfire for a little sky show. Twenty minutes later 26 youngins plus their parents showed up so Jeff, Barb, and I gave them a nice 1/2 hour show, touring the winter constellations and deepsky objects. As usual, most had never looked through a telescope before. M42 and Jupiter were wow'ers for them. There was a group shriek as a long bright meteor split the Orion constellation, with a long lasting 15 degree tail!
I did get the Spirograph Nebula, IC 418, in Lupus, but again my optical allignment wasn't good enough to get great detail. Near 9pm, I believe, the northern night sky began to light up and sure enough the aurora borealis was making its entrance into the night. It rose approximately 20 degrees high and probably lasted 30+ minutes before it shrunk down to the horizon again. See the 2nd photo of Travis Novitsky today on SpaceWeather.com's site which reproduces what we saw. Jeff had Mars locked in at the end of the evening, but it just was too small, bright, and boiling to ascertain much detail.
Overall, it was a pretty sweet night for mid-February. No dust, no skeeters, just a little frost at the end. I'll take another one of these anytime.