Saturday nite at EB was awesome. There was good to excellent seeing and dark clear skies almost the entire night. Air temps were tolerable, although the early morning was a bit frosty. Didn’t do a head count but there must have been 10-15 RAC members including young Nick Wietzel with his 8” DOB. Some of the high school and Church group people staying at EB also joined us. In the West Venus and Mercury were spectacular an hour after sunset and the early morning hours were graced with Jupiter, Mars and Saturn to the South. The EB lounge area and rest rooms were accessible all night (thank you Dean). The winter sky highlights included incredible nebulosity of Orion and numerous galaxies (thank you Jeff N. for the beautiful views of the Ursa Major galaxies and the Sombrero). The open star clusters of Auriga and Canis Major, the Beehive, the stunning double star gamma-Leonis and Dean’s expert commentary about everything we saw were also highlights. Not sure who chalked up the most Messier objects but it wasn’t me … for sure! I actually had more fun with the Zhumell 20 x 80 giant binoculars I brought along. My finder scope was having trouble distinguishing M3 in Bootes and so I never saw it in my scope (but Jeff showed me in his 12 inch). However the 20 x 80 binoculars showed it as a big, bright fuzzy spot that was undeniably a globular. Dean made my night with his comment after viewing M42 thru the big binocs (decorum prevents me from listing it here)!!! Oh what a night!
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