Just wanted to give a quick update on our night at Forest Road 006 Observing Site 1 which is south of Vernon. First off using the Mesonet the temperature at the site stayed in the low 20's during our observing time from 6:00p.m. until 12:00a.m. Humidity never got above 42% (once at 45% for 15min). Pit n Pole started at 24 degrees and did a free fall to 3 degrees by 12:00a.m. Humidity started in the low 40% and ended up at 65% at 12:00a.m. Lakeside by comparison started at 31 degrees F at 6:00p.m. and went to 24 degrees F (so basically the same as Vernon) while the humidity levels started at 41% and went up to 70% by 12:00a.m. The Vernon site is about 65 miles from my home in Herriman, 22.1 miles farther out than Pit n Pole. It took an hour and a half to drive it because of the rough road after Pit n Pole on the Pony Express and the 6 mile dirt road drive out to the site in the National Forest. The site has a layer of grass and both Mat and I commented that we didn't need our mats to lay down at the site. I came home with no dust! I'll be doing a blog entry on the objects I observed and sketched but I got 13 new objects off the NGC in, mainly consisted of emission, reflection, open clusters and galaxies in Orion. I also saw the IC supernova remnant in Gemini. I then spent time looking at some eye candy. The site is dark, much darker than Pit n Pole (SQM reading of 21.4 at the Pit which is my best on record vs 21.8 at Lakeside vs 22.2/22.3 at this site). There is some slight lights to the north from Vernon but they are like the Freeway lights to the southwest at Lakeside and with the car or junipers blocking the path, they are of no impact. Seeing conditions were just fantastic starting at an Antoniadi II and moving to an Antoniadi I. At one point we watched Sirius be still and only had a very slight twinkle about every 3-5 seconds. We focused on deep sky stuff til the moon came up around 10:50p.m. and then spent an hour or so on open clusters. There was a lot of meteor activity and they were all large and very bright. One that I saw actually faded into orange. Finally, Mat was eating/drinking some tomato soup he had brought and we were talking when I heard a sound. I asked if that was Mat. Yep and we continued. The sound kept going on and it was a very interesting sound. Mat heard it and it kept coming. So I flashed a light down by the road and Mat had me shine it in one of the Juniper trees and a very large owl flew out. I guess the owl didn't like what we were doing and was letting us know. Wish I knew what type it was. After packing up and then looking at another possible site, Mat noticed that the clouds came flying in so as we left, it was a very good thing. Probably one of the best nights I've had in six months and we never needed the heaters or my dew equipment. I will say this, Pit n Pole is done for me. I'll drive another 30 minutes to have the darkness I had last night, and only one truck came up the forest road which is over 3/4 of a mile away and no one was out there shooting things up! It was one of the quietest places I've observed and very peaceful. Even the Milky Way was extremely visible with structure while we had white lights on to set up. Shut off the lights, WOW! -- Jay Eads