Alpine invited me to observe the Perseid shower last night. His location is a secret but it's within 20 miles of Lakepoint. Time: 2009 August 13 0230-0630 UT.(Wednesday night MDT) Location: secret equiptment: 20x80 binoculars conditions: variable cloudiness from 10 to 70%. Wind: mostly calm with a brief gusty breeze. Temp: high 70's throughout the session. Transparency: slight haze half way up to Polaris. Moon: Last quarter moon rose at 11:23 MDT. Perseid meteor shower: early in the evening, bright fast members with long persistent trails. Cloud cover made counting difficult. Later activity was much less. C/2006 W3 (Christensen): position found from distance to Delta SGE and Delta DEL. near the zenith bright condensed with faint greenish tinge. M57: fairly easy with as a fuzzy patch, definitly not a star. M56: faint hazy patch without central condensation. M22 and M28 almost fit in the same field of view. Spectacular. M4 even larger and brighter than M22 lots of structure and graininess. M81 and M82 low on the horizon not much haze to the north down low. Veil nebula: 52 CYG easy naked eye but with binoculars star made western veil not visable. Eastern veil was direct vision object easy to detect. M51 visable at only 20 deg elevation, no spiral structure or companion seen. Alberio: split cleanly, colors bright. Jupiter: at 0405UT, two moons in close either side, a third moon far off to the west. Perseid at 2208MDT: ran south through head of SCO left a trail. Perseid at 2208MDT: bright, ran down the handle of big dipper through Arcturus all the way to VIR left very persistent trail. Perseid at 2209MDT: bright, ran though CVN paralell to last one but lower on the horizon. Perseid at 2225MDT: bright in DEL crossing wing of AQL with bright trail. Perseids at 2227MDT: three bright ones in SAG all the way accross the sky from the radiant. Perseid at 2227MDT: another crossing head of SCO with a trail. Perseid at 2228MDT: through head of DRA with persistent trail. Perseid at 2246MDT: ran under the teapot of SAG fairly persistent trail for so low on the horizon. Perseid at 2249MDT: bright ran along the western horizon under Arcturus. Perseids at 2300MDT: stream of three along the northern horizon moving to the west. Perseid at 2304MDT: bright with trail through CYG. Perseid at 2307MDT: long slow bright in CAS. Perseids at 2309MDT: two crossing the square of PEG. bright trails. Perseid at 2324MDT: bright in head of DRA came in two phases bright then dim and then bright again. cloud cover 70% at 2324MDT getting hard to see through the holes. Perseid at 2329MDT: fairly short over in PER which is above the horizon. moonrize at 2335MDT 2353MDT clouds still 70% moon hidden in the clouds occasionally a Perseid will burn through. 0021MDT clouds back to 40% moon no longer covered by clouds so sky is bright. Perseid at 0023MDT: while looking at M81 M82 in binoculars a bright perseid passed through the field of view. Trail looked like fireworks display. Perseid at 0109MDT: overhead with a two stage tail. second part of tail visable for full 10 seconds. Perseid at 0125MDT: fairly bright over by JUpiter in the east but with no tail. Perseid at 0125MDT: another dim on by big dipper but with on tail. 0125MDT cloud cover back to 70% again.