Hey, thanks! I just got back from an astronomy vacation and saw Richard's note Report on my astronomy vaction: I ended up making four trips. Trip #1 was to Silver Reef in the vicinity of Leeds, Washington County. I had so much trouble with my gear that I didn't get in any good observing. An amusing incident happened, though. I had all lights off as I was working, and my Jeep and telescope, etc., were somewhat obscured from the entrance to my camping spot. In the middle of the night a vehicle pulled in and I wanted to let the driver know somebody already had the spot, so I shined my flashlight toward him. A word about the flashlight: it's red light so it won't damage my night vision. I made it by taping a red photographic filter over the end of the flashlight, then pilling on electricians' tape on the sdies so that only a narrow slit of light gets through. I aimed the flashlight at the vehicle, sending out my narrow red beam of light, and the guy just whipped his truck into reverse, pulled out at top speed and roared off down the adjacent dirt road. I wonder what was going through his head. Trips #2 & 3: Relying on the National Weather Service web site that said the area would be "mostly clear" I headed out two nights in a row to Aragonite, which is halfway between Salt Lake City and Wendover. "Mostly clear" turned out to be windy and cloudy. The first night I waited until 10:30 before going home, the second until about 12:30 -- at which a hurricane was blowing. Trip #4: Saturday night I headed toward Island in the Sky. When I got to Price the weather was so horrible, with big clouds, overcast, distant thunderstorms, that I began to disbelieve the forecast on the Internet for Moab, which was, again "mostly clear." I managed to get through to Dave Sanders at the National Wather Service local office, who assured me that he had just looked at the radar and the only thing in sight for the area were a few little clouds over the Abajos. The system that socked Price in was to the north of my destination, and was heading north. So I pressed on. To my disappointment, much has changed on the "Island" since I last camped there. A couple of oil operations make parts look more like an industrial park than national park-quality landscape. Signs warned that I had to stay on established roads and trails, unlike the old days, when I could camp anywhere. Also signs said to camp in marked campgrounds. The one at Big Flat (the name is something like that) did not appeal to me because others were there and I didn't want noisy neighbors. I turned onto one side dirt road and found a nice spot where camping had been taking place and was about to set up, when a huge truck roared up the road spewing a great cloud of dust. Not good for the optics. I drove on, finding the road to Long Canyon. I hoped to camp at my old spot, which is a spur of land that juts out like our own Dead Horse Point. But the turnoff was gone, or I just missed it. A bit farther down the road I came to a big sandy bowl, something that looked excavated for road work. I figured nobody would object if I pulled off the road onto an excavated site, so I set up there. Here's where Sanders' forecast paid off. The night was the best I have ever experienced for astronomy, dead calm, clear, without any clouds. The moon set soon after I arrived and the heavens were wonderfully free of light pollution (a very slight glow from the direction of Moab did not bother me). M51 was stunning, with the sprial arms easily visible and apparently sprinkled with bright star-forming regions; the smaller galaxy was nebulous. I had lovely views of M13, the jewel-cluster globular, with strings of stars curving into the center; M22; M57; M22; the Dumbbell Nebula; the Helix Nebula, the first time I've looked at it, and it was much larger than I had expected; M31 with its edge dust lane incredibly sharp; M32; M81 & M82, M2.... When dawn was beginning to fuzz the observing, about 3:34 a.m., I quit and began to take things apart. I took my finder scope off and then decided to see if I could find M31 with it. Before bringing the scope up, I looked in the vicinity of M31, and there the galaxy was, very easily visible to the naked eye -- well, the scantily-clad eye, as I was wearing glasses. Then it was nice to look at it through the finder scope too. Anyway, WOW! Best wishes, Joe