by Phil Terzian
I arrived at MB at about 10pm and there were already 16 other scopes set up. I thought the observing conditions were quite good; no moon (at least for a couple of hours) no clouds and just a very light breeze. I was able to see several new (for me) M-objects, including the ring and dumbbell nebulae and many globular clusters.
Eric Ayers was there with his fabulous MX7C color one-shot CCD camera and was getting some remarkable views of M51, M101 and other objects.
Views of Mars showed the dark areas pretty clearly, but seeing deteriorated towards 1:00 when I left. All and all a very enjoyable evening and a good group to spend it with.