Most of this week we have had very cold (lows to the mid 20s) but clear nights here in Elk Grove (a Sacramento 'burb'). Each night I had an excuse not to observe including several Christmas chores and a mild case of the sniffles that I didn't want to get worse. Today my mother-in-law, Diane, arrived for a Christmas visit. She has an interest in astronomy, had heard about my "new" scope, and was interested in seeing some stuff.

Before leaving for dinner I put my scope, a hand-made 10" f6 Dob built by Tom Osypowski, out on the back patio to begin cooling off. When we got home I found a spot in the backyard that had a clear view of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and M42 that wasn't blocked by trees and set up the scope.

A quick look at the Moon showed that the scope had cooled off, the seeing was OK, but the transparency was pretty bad. I announced that the scope was ready and they (my wife, son, daughter, and Diane) took turns looking each of the objects mentioned previously. Diane was astounded by the views. All of her observations until then had been with a small pair of binoculars.

I currently have only a 25mm eyepiece so I wasn't able to show them much detail (not that the conditions would support them if I did). New 10 and 17mm eyepieces are waiting for me under the tree and it is killing me not to be able to use them.

After 20 minutes of looking they all went back into the house but I decided to stay out a little longer. I wasn't cold and there were more things I want to see. I quickly checked out M's 38, 36, 37, and 35. These are new friends I had met in November. I had, up until seeing these, thought that open clusters were pretty boring. These four are beauties.

I shifted back to Jupiter, rotated the OTA so that I could sit in my chair comfortably, and just watched for a good 15 minutes. The 25mm eyepiece gives me about 60x magnification so there was not much detail. I could easily pick out the NEB and SEB and three of the moons. Xephem indicated that the GRS was in view and I *think* I saw it but I am not sure.

I then swung over to M42 and checked it out for a while. I could only make our 4 stars in the Trapezium but I think I will need greater magnification to see more of them.

This time out I didn't attempt to see anything new. This was a "joy ride" and I certainly did have fun. I am no longer hesitant to observe in the cold.