On the morning of friday Sept 15, 2006, I parked my car along the eastern side of the hotel, and observed the sky with a Russian 4.3 Newtonian reflector a couple of hours before sunrise. The skies were semi clear but the seeing was the very best I can remember in recent times. The 22 day old moon and the contrasty terminator was fantastic! I was able to view with great beauty the moon. Tall mountain Pico near Copernicus was beautiful and the the Apennies were partly luminated. I was able to fully use my 4.8 mm Nagler with no image break down. This yeilds about 200 x with the small Russian reflector.I could see detail as small as the eye could see! I could not descern shimmering or atmospheric waves of any kind, and the high power view was the joy of the morning. Libration was great at 10.2 degrees and Mare Australis was tipped most favorably our way. The image snapped in focus when checking the focus, and at high powers this is a definete sign of an optically good instrument!
