Under A Clear, Dark Sky

I got out with a couple of neighbors last night to do a bit of observing. They were quite excited about the prospect... having seen the "canon" sitting on the driveway on a few occasions. I was excited, having seen how the sky was setting up for the evening. I saw the first downward pointing flashlight appear almost precisely at 8pm (our scheduled meeting time). Wayne came over looked at the scope... and asked about the size of the mirror. Apparently, he'd been discussing his evening plans with a buddy. He'd told him the scope was pretty big... and his buddy got excited and said... like what.. 10 - 12". When Wayne said 20 or so... his buddy almost pooped his pants. I told Wayne that this was a 25". I could see a smile appear on his face.
We began our night by spining the scope around to the west and snagging M57, The Ring Nebula. Wow! I always enjoy trips to the ring. So did Wayne. I gave a quick explanation about what we were looking at... when the second downward facing light appeared next door. Wayne's wife Susan was on her way over as well. When she got here, it was obvious that she was quite the resourceful woman. She'd been delayed looking for a second flashlight. Not finding one... she grabbed the next best thing... a telephone with an illuminated face. Whenever she hit a button... this thing lit up like a flashlight. We gave Susan a quick view of the Ring... and moved on.
Our next stop was one of my favorite globular star clusters... M15 in Pegasus. They were both impressed with this object... and rightfully so. M15 is an absolutely amazing object to view... especially in a 25" under dark skies. We continued hitting highlights of the fall sky for a little over an hour... when my 2 year old daughter decided that I'd had enough free time. At this point, we did a quick wrap up... of The Pleiades Star Cluster and the red planet, Mars. The Pleiades is actually too big to be viewed in the narrow field of view of the big scope... while Mars looked OK. It was still a bit too low for ideal viewing... but nonetheless showed a decent amount of surface details. All in all... a good night!