by Paul LeFevre
I got up at 3:00 AM (I know, I'm nuts), threw my scope in the car, and headed in to work early to spend some time with Mars. Didn't turn on the heater the whole drive, so my scope would already be cooled and ready to set up -- brr! I set up on the hill above our parking lot, and the skies were amazingly good.
Mars was gorgeous at 300X, with subtle hints of surface detail, and a slight brightening at the south end, though I couldn't quite define the polar cap itself. I threw on a red filter to see if I could coax a bit more detail out of it, but it didn't seem to make much difference today, though the southern brightening was a bit more pronounced.
I swung up to the zenith and found M13, one of the M's that had eluded me at the marathon. It was an easy target this morning, and though mostly just a fuzzy patch, there were hints of individual stars during moments when the atmosphere calmed down.
Over to M92, another missed M from the marathon, and I was rewarded with a nice fat circle of fuzziness, very bright but no stellar resolution at all. I was just considering going after a few more M's I missed the other night, when the parking lot lights came on -- 5:00 AM. So ended the morning :)
Sorry I missed the moon show, Bill!