Sunday December 12th

    Mom, Carrie, and I attend church then head home and pack for our trip.
We leave for an area near clear skies southwest of San Antonio, Texas.

On the trip up there the weather was beautiful...upper 70's and clear blue
skies. We arrived to our location and checked into a hotel, grabbed a bite to
eat at Pizza Hut.

We left for our dark site location in the Bandera region. The skies were
amazingly crisp. I'd never seen the winter skies from that location and was
VERY pleased. It was slightly chilly, but quite nice.

Our setup was perfect...three lawn chairs with blankets. My 8" telescope,
binoculars and cameras ready to go. We saw a few earth grazers. The first left
us yelling in excitement as it crossed 60 degrees of sky, was red in color
and left a long smoky trail. we saw a handful more of the earth grazers, which
was quite a treat.

We few meteors and enjoyed the glorious starry skies. The Milky 
Way crossed through the summer triangle in great detail and the winter milky
was stunning. The nearby small town with its few lights glistened in the
distance. It was like we were hanging between stars...below us faint city
lights sparkled and over our heads the heavens poured out bright stars that took my
breath away.

Just a few degrees above the town stars twinkled ...such a peaceful view.

We viewed the following objects through the scope:
double cluster in Perseus
American Nebula region in Cygnus
Cassiopeia region
Pleiades
Orion Nebula
and the comet Q/2004

There is something about seeing Orion rise above the trees that always
captivates me. The nebula had mostly green tints to it with  a little red. Comet Machholz
was first spotted with naked eye then with the scope as a green fuzzy
star.