Well, for once we caught a break with the weather. Despite a bit of ambiguity in the forecast the clouds never came, and we had clear skies at Caledon last night. Joe Francis, Bart and Linda Billard, Leigh Gettier and a member to whom I apologize for not recalling his name were there, along with a guest astronomer and wife from Manassas. Many visitors turned out, with lots of youngsters in tow, and it was a great night for the guests. I would guess that there were a dozen or so, and all were enthusiastic and appreciative of the views.

The night was a good one despite the fact that neither the seeing nor the transparency was great. Perhaps the only real downer was the fact that there was a bit of a breeze which made high power observing less than satisfactory. Views up to 150X were excellent. However, my one foray to 300X in an attempt to split a close double wasn't pretty. I would say the seeing was level 3 on a scale of 1 to 5. To see what that means visually, take a look at the Astronomical Seeing animated GIF near the top of the Star Parties page on our web site, in the Monthly Star Parties section.

All in all, it was good to finally get back out under the stars again at Caledon. By 11 PM we had all closed up shop and headed home, having bagged many deep sky objects, a few planets and some nice memories.