by Bob Jardine
Last night was better than expected at MB. We were apparently above most of the smoke. The seeing was good, as Marek said in an earlier message. The usual MB light domes were there, perhaps even a bit brighter than normal due to reflection back down from low horizon clouds and/or that part of the smoke that we weren't above. But it wasn't too bad, and it was partly made up for by being a shirt-sleeves night.
Four scopes: Marek and James with their twin XT-10s, Peter McKone with his 15-inch Discovery, and me with the TV NP101.
We spent some time just after dark debating the magnitude of Nova SGR 02#3. Then we all looked for (and found in all 4 scopes, I think) the little nearby glob: NGC 6717 (this could be wrong---doing this from memory at work without benefit of my notes).
Peter and James were doing some late summer good-byes: Peter to some Sgr globs, James to the Swan Nebula.
I went looking for the Toadstool...a little asterism (or cluster?) mentioned in Sky & Tel October issue (Small Scope Sampler column). Everybody agreed that it wasn't a bad representation of a toadstool. Broad flat top and a little crooked stem.
After the Toadstool, I got a nice split of the dbl-dbl, as Marek mentioned. 300X in the NP101.
Moonrise at 9:40 or so. Everyone packed up. I took a look at Cassini A and B (the ones on Luna, not on Saturn). Surprisingly good view of the moon, even though it was still down very low.
Packed up and left around 10:30.