The 12 mm took us to the heart of this cluster, showing hundreds and hundreds of individual stars all glowing fiercely to make up this object. The 32 mm was able to encompass the entire cluster, showing its size and granularity. We compared views in the 12 mm Nagler IV eyepiece, with its 332x magnification and 14.5 arc minute field of view and our University Optics 32 mm Konig at 127x and 28.3'. They helped emphasize the dark lanes running through the dust clouds, but Joe believes the OXY-III filter that's backordered will be more effective. We spent some time on M8, the Lagoon Nebula, and tried out our narrow- and broad band nebular filters. Once that was set, we were off and running. We caught a glimpse of the moon as we waited for the sky to darken This was because we started the evening by entering the precise time as defined by the atomic clock at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (by way of their Internet time server), doing a 2 star alignment on Altair and Arcturus, and resetting the HOME position for the scope. The GOTO capabilities finally came up to snuff. The scope performed beautifully, though it could still benefit from a collimation. What an amazing night! It was our first real night of excellent seeing since the LX-200 came online. Dave even got a lift from his nephew until his replacement for his damaged car appears. Several folks had conflicts as one would expect, but Joe, Dave, Art and I made it. We sent out notices to everyone who has an e-mail address and contacted two non e-mailers via phone. Saturday: We scheduled an impromptu work and viewing schedule for this evening once Joe heard how good the weather would be.
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