A 'quick' note on last night at Wolf Creek as I have been up all night a need a few zzzz's...sorry if my rambling is more discombobulated than usual....wow! my spell checker says I spelled discombobulated correctly even in my current state (Utah), what are the odds? As Jim mentioned, the clouds from the NE went to bed fairly early and left us with good dark sky for the remainder of the night. The satellite animation that I saw yesterday afternoon showed both the incoming bands of clouds from Wyoming and the smoke from the Cascade Uncontrolled Burn. In the animation, the smoke was blowing between Utah Lake & Strawberry Reservoir so I thought our chances looked good and they were. You could see the layer of smoke skirting the SW & S horizons but it never crept up to interfere with viewing. There seemed to be a fire to the East of the site but again the smoke on the eastern horizon stayed low and removed. I just checked the National Weather Service satellite site again and today's animation shows not a tenth of the smoke I saw yesterday and the forecast is for clear for the area from Salt Lake to Duchesne. The temp remained 40-45 for most of the night with occasional bouts of wind chill factor. Not nearly as cold as I had imagined it would be and was prepared for. I left my back-up heavy coat off all night. We saw a 25 hour-old moon last night through a pair of 10x70 binoculars after looking at Venus. Mars started out with Solis Lacus nicely placed (about 115 CM) for easy identification before it rotated out of view. Mare Sirenum then took over as well as Mare Cimmerium later on...look for the connection between these two Maria...it isn't shown on most Mars maps. We also tried out a Sirius Optics Mars 2003 filter with very encouraging results...more on that later. Kim found both Uranus & Neptune. I hunted (and do I mean hunted) down Comet Encke which is directly below (East) of Beta & Gamma Triangulum and which is also directly below 22nd magnitude...lol...or so it seemed. I just found out it was a little over 13th mag, quite diffuse and can attest that it was very tricky to find. This comet is predicted to reach 6th or 7th mag by the end of November or early December so keep an eye out for it. http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/comets/article_1036_1.asp Limiting magnitude (using stars in Ursa Minor) was 7.1 and the seeing varied throughout the night. At one point near 5am I was using Jim's 12.5" f/7 at 318x & 462x to look at Saturn...the 318 held details fairly steady and at 462 I glimpsed Encke's Gap for the briefest of moments. Jupiter stayed mostly in the soup but I did get a nice high power (318) view just before sunrise. Mercury was just below Jupiter (3 or 4 degrees) and was quite easily seen for almost an hour. Through Kim Hyatt's 10" f/5 dob at 90 power I could make out its gibbous shape despite the frantic scintillation. I took quite a few photos (astro & the fall colors) and will post the better ones on my homepage after I wake up...in several weeks. G'nite, Dave Bennett P.S. Many thanks to Jim Gibson, Tom Watson, Mike Bailey, Kim Hyatt, Steve (?), Damon and Christina for letting me commandeer their great telescopes throughout the night. Amateur astronomy sure attracts some wonderful people. P.P.S. Watch out for road delays caused by sheep. Advice: bring your own sheep dog! Theirs were useless.