Went on another of those charity river trips I do on Wed, with a group of devel- opmentally disabled adults. The rafting was nice, but not on topic here. I took along the scope, and set it up in the evening for the thirteen dd's (and three very overworked staff who brought them...ever try to keep track of 13 willful 6 (mentally) year olds?).

Mother nature cooperated. The sky up at Lotus was black, black, black. Not a trace of dew, and only the faintest of gently zephyrs distrubed the early night air. In short, it was absolutely glorious. The Milky Way stretched visible from horizon to horizon; it was so thick with stars that I (who has done almost all his star-hopping from city to suburban skies) got thoroughly lost and could not recognize finder views. Double-cluster, Andromeda galaxy, M8 were all naked eye.

While a few of them could not really understand what they were looking at, for most the experience was a succession of "Wow!" and "Ooooh!". They were fascinated. I was only able to show them a few things in the time we had: Ring, M8, Jupiter (all sorts of bands showing!) and moons, M22, Albireo.

I poked around a little with the scope after they left, looking at a few things but mostly getting lost in the Milky Way. Phooey with that....I left the scope and dragged out an old garden lounger and the binocs. I spent the better part of an hour sweeping the Milky Way and settling on the Andromeda galaxy. It was turning magnificently, or so it seemed...

I must have put the binocs down for a moment to rub my eyes, and when I awoke again it was past midnight. Looked at Andromeda again...still there, but not turning. Still, it was a nifty dream.