A handful of "SLASers" made it down to the Wedge Friday night. Unfortunately clouds decided to visit Friday after a brilliantly clear week of skies. We watched the sky for signs of clearing but decided it wasn't going clear anytime soon so we drifted off to take a quick nap and check back in a few hours. Jim Gibson and I got up a little after mid-night to se how the skies were doing but the skies were still pretty bad. There were a few sucker holes but that was about it. After an hour of hoping and watching we gave up as we realized that even the sucker holes had disappeared behind cloud cover. Don Colton got up a few hours later (about 3am) to find the sky had finally cleared. Don rousted Jim and me and we had about 3 terrific hours with some winter constellations in relatively warm weather. We had 3 scopes going; Jim's 20" Dob, Don's 18" Robo Dob and and my "small" 16" Dob. Nebulas seemed to be the objects of choice: the Rosette, Eskimo, Crab, Horse Head (yes we actually saw it), the Orion (never saw it that bright, simply spectacular) and handful of other planetary and emission nebulas including an NGC right next to M81 and M82 that we'd not seem before, at least not me. Saturn was up high and bright, the Cassini division was popping in and out, seeing was not steady as you might expect after the clouds, but it still looked great after a summer's absence. The night ended with Leo high in the east and Venus shinning brightly enough to cast a shadow, Jupiter was up but too low to get a good view. Overall the tour of the winter constellations made it a worthwhile trip and a worthwhile wait. A handful of people stayed in bed that night despite a few attempts to wake them, not to fear, the winter constellations will be back, in the winter, wear your thermals. Bob Taylor