Up at 3am, stumbled out to back deck and saw that Mars was occluded by the roofline. Grumble and stumble back into bed. Actively not sleeping, a thought coalesced. Got back up, looked out front door and sure enough Mars was visible. Not very high above the tree-line but a clear shot all the same. Dressed, went to back deck, took telescope apart...very damp out...dragged around to front of house, put back together, aligned as best I could without the north star for reference, got locked in. Mars didn't seem as orange as last week but was very bright.
I used a new barlow lens extender, which doubles the magnification of existing lenses. Using the 25mm (12mm w/barlow) Mars was starting to look good. So I went inside to grab the camera, 10mm lens, and the growing pile-o-adaptors. With the 10mm-barlow combo Mars was very large. Since Mars was so bright and clear it didn't seem to dim as much under increased magnification. The ice cap was vivid. Really a beautiful sight.
Fumbled with adaptors, hooked up the camera, and couldn't see Mars. Unhooked, re-aligned scope, hooked up camera...battery dies. Ran inside, changed batteries, ran back outside, started to re-align, Mars dropped into the trees.
Well, at least I got to see it.
Decided to do some general star gazing and since the front yard has very little sky I took the telescope apart, carried it back to the deck, set it up, aligned to the north star. Went back and grabbed the lenses and covers and coffee. About the time I got back the western stars seemed fuzzy. Rubbed sleep boogers from my eyes...no help. Strange, no clouds. Suffered brief thought that my eyes are starting to go. Eastern sky was still sharp so I put a lens in the scope, swung around to Orion's belt, looked through the finder scope and....fuzzy!
A fog bank had moved in.
It's 4:30am, must be time to go to work...
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