by Bob Jardine
Four of us went to MB last night: Jay, Peter S., Peter McK., and myself. As you suspected, neither the seeing nor the transparency were very good, and dew was definitely an issue. Peter S. and I did a LM check mid-evening and came up with something between 4.4 and 5.0 (Leo and Bootes); it got slightly better as time went on. And it was pretty cold...much colder than I expected, especially after a T-shirt-sleeves night at Oakridge just 2 or 3 weeks ago.
It wasn't a total bust, however. The 5 planet arrangement was quite pretty. Mercury was much higher than I expected, and easy to see significant phase in the scope, in spite of the seeing. Juptier had that "fifth moon" -- a star almost exactly the same magnitude as the real moons, located just about the distance a real moon would be, but off perpendicular to the line of the moons.
I left last around 11:30, happy to have gotten out at all and absorb some ancient photons, but definitely looking forward to a warmer, dryer night this weekend.