Hello -- I've always been curious to qualify for myself the effect of the moon on deep sky observing. I was in LA last week when we had the good weather and no moon, so it's been about a month since I've been out. I decided to go this morning and take advantage of 1 1/2 hours without moon, and I added a little time with moon to the beginning. I crossed the 300 line on the H400 list... So I started at about 4:30am in the driveway at Rockport State Park. The moon was up a little in the west, but I was looking mostly south in CMaj, Mon, and Pup. It was nice to be able to set up by moonlight. I did not fail to find any of the ten or so open clusters I was looking for in the area. None was particularly faint, but most were somewhat diffuse. By 5:00, the mountains to the west had blocked out the moon. I kept going in Puppis, and caught Zeta Pup over the horizon, so I reached down for the fantastic NGC 2477. The other big-and-bright cluster nearby (I forget its number) was not naked eye, due to being so close to the horizon, but nice in the scope. After the moon was mostly obscured, I found some small and faint galaxies in Lynx and Leo Minor. These were the most difficult targets, but not so bad. So I'm curious about other peoples' experience: how far away from an object does the moon have to be to affect its visibility? If the moon is out, and near full, but on the other side of the sky, does it have little effect? If it is still technically not set, but obscured from view by a mountain, is that even better? Even when set, you can still see the light from the moon. Is this basically benign, if you're looking the other way? First subfreezing observing session of the season for me! Much dew collected on my beard, but my equipment was not much affected. Even my books and notebooks stayed somewhat dry. ---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall@math.utah.edu