(12-23-2021, 09:48 AM)homebiscuit Wrote: I had my telescope out for a few hours last night. The skies were clear of clouds and the moon rose late (a good thing), but transparency was awful. Perseus was barely visible with the naked eye. After spending entirely too much time following a fool's errand of trying to at least get a hint of the California Nebula, I settled on looking at some open star cluster because transparency was quickly eroding. It's always interesting to see a satellite or piece of space junk go whizzing through the field of view when observing. Even though my optics stayed pretty clear, the red dot finder dewed over so bad it was like looking through a shower door.

My back is a little sore this morning from humping the telescope around and craning over to line up the finder. I need one of those rigs that can be controlled with a wifi hookup. All you have to do is sit in the comfort of your home, tell it where to go and watch on a computer screen. That would seem to take the challenge out of it, though.