Mars & The Moon (II)

I got out briefly to view a couple of early risers last night. Mars & The Moon were sitting low in the east around 11pm. Views of the pair were nice, but... not too exciting. Skies were simply too turbulent and unsteady to really get much of a telescopic view. At 90x through the 6" Mak-Cas... I could just barely perceive the larger continental sized features on the red planet. All this, from an object that seemed to have the consistency of a cotton ball :-The Moon, at least showed off its usual battery of craters, valleys and mare. It too was seriously hampered by the turbulence. Views seemed comparable to observing through a fast moving stream.
Oh... did I mention... I also got a decent view of The Pleiades Star Cluster (M45). This looked probably the best of the three. At 60x, I could just about fit the entire cluster into the field of view. A 30x view would have given me enough sky background to recognize the true shape of the cluster. Nevertheless... I noted a hint of nebulosity around many of the stars. This was pretty cool (at least to me, anyway)
Oh, well... it seemed that... at least last night... the naked eye view to the east was by far the nicest. Mars was to the right... with the Pleiades to its left. Further left... and more towards the horizon was an almost last quarter Moon. SaWeet!