It's been a busy day and a busy weekend, but I wanted to comment on what was for me the high point of a so-so (OK, mostly terrrible) night at Freaky Peak. At about midnight, as we were packing up to call it quits (I forgot my laser cloud buster again, sorry guys ;), I thought I'd just meander with the binocs in the only clear area South.
Suddenly, I was hit with a glob of photons so bright I fell backwards 3 steps. I'm not kidding! What WAS that HUGE thing to the right of Scorpius's tail and Lupus? (I was lucky to see _those_ two constellations at that point in the evening). First glance, it looks twice as big as M13! Incredible!
I hurridly unpacked the scope and grabbed my star charts. Wow - Omega Centauri (NGC519)! My first time seeing it. I'm wondering _how_ I could have missed this monster all these years! When I got home and checked it out with Starry Night I discovered how lucky I was to catch it at all while it was up. If you haven't seen this globular cluster, I recommend making a point to seek it out between, say, 10 - 12PM in the next month, before it disappears below the horizon again. This beautiful sight never gets very high in our sky and won't be very easily seen at all by June. It's now at it's peak elevation of 5-8 degrees or so at a reasonable for all time of night (ie not 3AM). If you're at the Peak, you'll need to be up by the Observatory to get a view of it free of the hills.
The other fun parts of Saturday night was alternately watching the head and tail of the comet drop off like a knife had cut it as the clouds played in and out around it. The moonrise was spectacular also through the scope - with the clouds in front appearing in dark, whispy lines. It gave an effect of looking at Jupiter to it; if it was your first time looking, you'd think it was some kind of surface detail; the result with the orange glow and detail in craters, despite the atmosphere, was really gorgeous. I wish I had a photo. I let my imagination run wild, and it was great. Not serious observing, but just plain fun.
That's my report; a good deal of fun sharing with the public as well, despite a night that promised to be most discouraging, but really wasn't.