I'm wondering where Jim went Friday night. I was at Harper's quarry -- I thought it was the gravel pit. But I guess not! The only other folks I saw out there were a couple of young deer hunters who were checking out places for the upcoming hunt. Do I have the directions wrong? Have I been going to the wrong place? I turn off at the farthest road back where there's a little speed hump and a stop sign facing toward the work area, then follow the paved road all the way to the gate. That's where I set up. I had a terrible night, by the way, as far as some of my equipment went. I had decided that maybe I could get my Meade LX200 (12") onto the Superwedge if I used a longer bolt that I could lift with one hand while I used the mount's handle with another hand. I bought a long 3/8" bolt with a ring at the end large enough for three fingers, which I figured I could hold onto. When I got to the quarry I set up the tripod, leveled and aligned it, and put on the Superwedge. But as hard as I tried, I could not get the bolt into the cut on the Superwedge. I managed to lift the telescope up high enough so it should have gone in, but it would not. Incidentally, I found I could not manage it while holding onto the bolt. It was a difficult struggle, and when I finished and was talking to our son on the cell phone, I alarmed him with my coughing -- that kind of stress on the lungs is equivalent to a runner panting and gasping and coughing after a race, I guess. I wanted to take some photos anyway, even without the Superwedge, and put the telescope on the tripod. Then I tried to get my Pictor 201XT going for the first time. It would not recognize any light from a star, or even from Mars. I am convinced I didn't have my off-axis guider set to properly focus on the Pictor's CCD chip. I know it was working because, when I shone my red flashlight at it, the reading went off the scale. I just need to get the bugs out of this and set it up right. Pooped, sore and discouraged, I decided to take pictures even without the not-so-super wedge and without the Pictor. I made a couple of views of the great galaxy in Andromeda and a couple of the Orion nebula. Both attempts were unguided, other than the telescope's tracking. Then I used up the film with six quick snapshots of the last-quarter moon. This was Fujicolor 800 film and the exposures were 1/250, 1/500 and 1/1000 of a second. I used my focal reducer for all of the views. What really struck me was the chain of mountains, part of the rim of Mare Imbrium, seeming to stick up out of Eratosthenes. The mountains were right at the terminator, so high that they caught the sunlight and formed a bright flag above the darkness. I had never seen such a dramatic view of the moon before. By the time I went home I was half frozen and my upper lip almost felt frost-bitten. But the photos encouraged me enough to try again next week, during the new moon. Maybe I'll go to the Wedge. When I had my pictures developed on Saturday, I was surprised to find they weren't bad, given the breeze and the lack of a good tracker. Andromeda shows two major dust lanes and I can see the hint of another lane on the far side; the Orion nebula shows its shape and some color. These are marred by imperfect tracking, as I expected, but they're not so bad. The moon photos are delightful. I had not used a cable release nor did I flip up the mirror, as I was basically using up film. Best wishes, Joe