One gets desperate after a while...unremitting clouds and rain, except for the day (others tell me it was clear) one has to go to family functions, e.g. Christmas eve...So, in mild desperation, I took the scope out into the backyard and took a look at such small pieces of sky as were open between the clouds rolling by.

Actually, I got pretty lucky. For about a half hour (not in one continuous time segment) , I had a very clear view of Orion and poked around in the "usual places" along the belt. One advantage of the substantial cloud cover is that it seems to block the light pollution from below and thus the small chunks of sky one does have is pretty darn dark. I saw more nebulosity at M42 than on cloudless urban nights (It really was the nebula, too, not some wisps of cloud passing by! Trust me :-). And there was nebulosity evident around Zeta Orionis as well, which I usually have a hard time seeing.

Got some looks at the nearly full moon, but that wasn't so interesting as the interplay of the moon and the clouds. These clouds were thin (you could see some of the larger craters indistinctly through them) and the moon's light caused a circular almost-rainbow that was captivating to observe: Mostly reds and golds in ghostly rings. This was worth just kicking back and watching the subtle changing of the colors as the clouds varied in thickness(?).