Being terrified to have myself revealed as a true mouse, I decided to suck it up and head out.
Some car problems (really!!) with my son’s truck held me up much later than I wanted, but it turned out to be a relatively easy 83 mile run in an hour and 15 minutes from door to parking lot. When I turned onto the final road to the beach, another car ahead of me was driving so slow and tentatively, that I figured it had to be one of our gang. When he pulled over to let me pass, I stopped and it was Tom. So we had a laugh and he led me to the parking lot. Gene was already sitting there waiting. Matt and Bruce came in shortly after. We set the cars in line to block the wind (that didn’t work very well 
) and we set up on the parking lot. I had brought a snow shovel, but the snow ceased to exist somewhere around Dennis, and there was not a snowflake in sight in the parking lot or any adjacent land. So it was DARK out there!!! We had a small light dome on the western horizon, probably Hyannis, and a small bubble on the southern horizon, which I thought might be Nantucket. Low to zero horizon all around, and a dark ocean a few yards to our south. Other than some distant porch lights, we could not even identify ourselves it was so dark. In fact, later on when Gene was saying farewell, I turned from my scope and shook Bruce’s hand instead of Gene’s!!! 
That is how dark it ought to be. Everywhere!!!In fact, we stood for a while just absorbing the sky. Orion was dense with stars. The entire shield was visible, including the faint stars at the very top, and his body was lit up with about 75 or more stars. Incredible. About this time we all noticed a bright nebula low to the southeast that nobody could identify (Sorry, Matt, I just have to tell it!!). Eventually we figured out it was the Beehive!!!
It was the size of a full moon, no lie! Winter Milky Way was nearly horizon to horizon, almost as dense as the summer Milky Way at Stellafane. There are no big dust lanes in the winter version, but it is very bright under dark skies. In Canis Major, M41 (the Heart of the Dog) was a naked eye object, and the Pleiades had naked eye nebulosity. It was incredible.Except for the wind. I never used my tracking motors last night, because I was certain that the wind might damage the drives. So we pushed the scope all night, and at times the wind would nearly rip it away from you. I had to leave the shroud off the scope, which always makes me nervous, but there is no way we could have observed with it on. I was plenty dark enough out there that the shroud would not have made any difference in the contrast, I’m sure.
Okay, all set up and layered with so many clothes that it was hard to move, I collimated the scope, aimed it at Sirius, turned the Telrad on. And nothing happened. Dead Telrad. I had tested it at home, so I could not believe it. I went to change the batteries and immediately found the problem: the black wire from the battery box was snapped off clean. And the contact was still on the wire, not on the box. Ducking into the car so I could take my gloves off, I figured out that the contact could be put between the retaining spring and the end of the battery, and the Telrad lit up! Since it would not stay, I duct-taped it in place, and it worked well the rest of the evening. Duct tape is the foundation of civilization!
Getting started, we bounced around to a few old standards like the Orion nebula, M41, the Beehive, and I don’t remember what else, since everything we saw was getting the same remarks: ‘Wow! look at that!!!’ So I pulled out my Herschel book and began running my observing list. The first few were open clusters (not my favorite objects!) but everything was so easy to find with all the field stars being so obvious. It was just point-and-shoot. Nice. Eventually, I went up to M81/82 (M82 is actually a Herschel object) to see how nice these would be. They were as bright as M31 usually is! M82 had a distinct dust lane, and M81 was quite large. There are two other satellite galaxies around these two that are also Herschel objects, so we studied those for a while. Mere wisps that would be hard to find under lesser skies. We also ran some of the Leo galaxies and also found them to be very easy and bright despite being only a few degrees above the horizon.
About this time we noticed Saturn, and went for that. It was low, so it was awkward with the dob, but it was worth it to see the rings for the first time this year. And I have to say that Saturn almost looks comical with the rings nearly shut down now, but looking like a thin line drawn at the wrong angle, some poorly-drawn cartoon done by someone who had never actually seen Saturn. It will be a sad sight until the rings come back, but it is worth seeing as an ‘event’ that we have to endure once in a while. It was too low to count moons, so that will have to wait until another night. I’m anxious to see Saturn’s moons line up like Jupiter’s though. That will be interesting.
We finally decided to take a break. Gene was finding the wind to be impossible, so he packed it in. Bruce suggested that we warm up in the ‘Burban, but Tom had such a warm hat on and pulled down over his ears that he didn’t hear us and stayed at his scope. Finally looking up, he thought he had been deserted, and eventually found us nice and cozy inside the truck. We estimated that it was below freezing even inside the ‘Burban, but that felt warm with no wind.
Back outside, I started playing with filters and looking for the Rosette. Never found it. However, there were some nice star clusters in Monoceros, so I bounced around to some of those. I also looked for Thor’s Helmet, usually an easy object, but didn’t find that. I think the cold was getting distracting, and the wind was simply awful. There were times when the scope would swing 20 degrees! And other times, trying to gain elevation, the wind would simply make the scope feel as if it was frozen to the base, and it took raw strength to move it. Not the best circumstances, believe me. Nonetheless, we studied the Orion Nebula with an O-III filter, my favorite combination for my favorite target with the big dob. As always, tendrils of nebulosity ran out of both sides of a degree and a half FOV, and the swirls of gas near the Trapezium were simply lovely. We next moved to M1, and viewed it with no filter (bright!!!) and we could see some details even then, with the O-III filter (too dark), an old Deep Sky filter (not enough detail), and a simple UHC, which brought out some excellent swirls and knots of darker material. Very sweet!
Next up was the Pleiades, and the nebulosity was nearly overwhelming. It looked as if someone had breathed on the ep. Merope glowed in its cloud. And brighter than usual, again because of our super darkness.
Now came the challenge object. We all agreed to save it for last. I brought out the Hb filter, my 23mm eyepiece (Paul and Pete know why). Looking toward Alnitak, I slowly panned downward. Nothing. Two more times. I kept getting a bright red star (red due to the filter) which I believe was 26816, the star with all the fluorescent molecular hydrogen. I kept seeing some faint and indistinct nebulosity, but nothing more. Again. And again. Pete’s words kept ringing in my ear “It’s big. Think bigâ€
, the scope wasn't moving in the RA.
in RA but it does move in DEC. 
(at least we would have a little heat)
, put it all back together, bring it back to the observatory set it up ( mind you that there is a lot of ice on the deck and lots of snow on the way) power it up Autostar says "Finding Home" and and and... NOTHING again nothing.
and we clean the hell out of the base (there was a lot of foam dust) and everything just like before works great, Lou and I put everything back together again (by this time I'm feeling like all the kings horse's and all the king's men) go back out , set it up, Autostar says "Finding Home" and and and and it WORK'S OMG... IT'S ALIVE!!!!
