Foul weather arrives just in time for the weekend. What's new. Saturday proved the usefulness of Atilla Danko's Clear Sky Clock. As forecasted, the sky began clearing by sunset, at the end of astronomical twilight, it was completely clear.

After sunset, Jupiter treated viewers to a shadow transit and the appearance of the GRS. At times clouds obscured the planet, but suprisingly, the seeing was pretty good, allowing views at 510X in my 16 inch dob.

After the skies darkened, I began chiseling away at the Herschel 400. Over the next two hours, I managed to knock off 9 galaxies in western Leo before I was sidetracked. It was 03:40 Sunday before I got back to the list and logged another, but by then, I was far too drained to continue. So 10 more Herschels crossed off for this trip. Not too bad. That brings my grand total to 147, only 253 to go.

During my Herschel hiatus, I spent some time with Gary Honis, who was doing some imaging with his new D10 digital camera. He's taken some great pictures with his older cameras, the D10 should produce some awesome images. We also took notice of a handful of meteors associated with the Lyrid Meteor shower.

I had a look at M4 through John O'Hara's 10 inch Portaball. The chain of stars across M4's center was easily seen with direct vision. The Portaball frames M4 nicely. It's amazing what the dark skies of Cherry Springs will do for objects that are normally lost in the haze and light domes we're all too familiar with.

Tom Whiting was present with his new 30" dob. Yes that's Thirty inch! This is one big scope. At f/4.5, the eyepiece isn't obscenely high off the ground, well not to me anyway. Once you are at the eyepiece, the views are worth the altitude. I had the pleasure to get a peek at M51 through it while it was at the worst possible place to view with a dob - the zenith. I have never seen so much detail in this object. Amazing. I can only imagine what fun it would be to have that size scope with a good starchart and dark skies all to myself!

We all had a nice break and devoured what was left of Thom Bemus' Volunteer of the Year Cake. Congrats Thom!

Sunday morning brought clear skies and the promise of another good night, unfortunately I had to return home for work on Monday. I stayed and talked with Gary, John, Tom, and latecomer Ralph before I left in the early afternoon. I had picked up a fairly good sunburn that morning. Next weekend, I'll remember to bring some sunscreen - the superb cloud attractor!