Hi, Billy. We had a bunch of clouds here over Matthews (near Charlotte) and anyway, I was burned out from work. But I was out Saturday and got a nice look at Saturn and a sketch of it. It was really nice to look at with a couple of darker bands across the north "subtropical" zone and hints of finer banding on the globe and rings (Cassini's Division showed its stripe along with a bit of the innermost (C?) ring as it crossed the globe. I also did a little more galaxy hunting, going after M51 and M63 but those were a little harder to pull, even though they were in good parts of the sky, a little west of zenith. I don't think it was all that early being between 11 PM and midnight, but while they were detectable, it was hard getting them to show anything. I'm working with 5" of glass, which might not have enough horses for teasing a lot of details from galaxies. But the sky was a little hazy, being hot and humid with a lot of water vapor up there and a few thin clouds. Actually, I cut my session a little earlier than I wanted to, coming in around midnight, since towards the end the stars were playing peek-a-boo with clouds scudding across the sky.....
Mark Costello
Matthews, NC, USA
"I hear you're mechanically inclined. Did you ever do anything with perpetual motion?"
"Yeah, I nearly had it a couple of times."
