Howdy!
Thanks again to all for answering my last batch of questions! I'm sure this has got to be annoying for some of you, and I'm sure that a few of you have probably answered these questions time and time again, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience!

I did pick up a Meade 2x Barlow this afternoon...works great with the 25mm lense, but was a little blurry with the 9mm...on the other hand it's not exactly a crystal clear night either...kinda dodgin clouds as I go! With that said tonight, we were able to see the rings of Saturn! WOOHOO! ROCK & ROLL! Also with the Barlow and the 25mm we were able to see the bands on Jupiter (and 3 moons tonight...Ganymede was hiding LOL).

I started playin with the Autostar a little tonight. Still have to figure out how to do the alternate alignment methodes as the "Easy" alignment went looking for Sirius...which is on the other side of my house (LOL). I was able to get it to track Jupiter tho...tracked very nicely. I did notice at higher zoom levels, that there was some vibration that was noticable from the motors. I found a good Meade specific forum and will be asking them if they have any suggestions for that.

Anyways, on to the questions!

First I need a couple of definitions from that my first newbies questions post explained...

"Eye Relief"...I've seen this mentioned in a few places, but have no idea what it means.

"Plossl"....huh??? Sounds like something I do after eating too many tacos! LOL!

Ok, this next quesion may sound a little strange...are there any black holes or nebula around the vacinity of Jupiter? I was playin with the Barlow with the 9mm and was tryin to get things focused. My view finder is still a little out of whack with the scope, so I had lost Jupiter for a moment while I was lookin. While trying to focus, I found this section out there that basically looked like a dark black "blob". Now, I'm not sure if I actually saw something or if it was something stupid like condensation on the lens, mirror, etc...it was getting quite cold outside and I can only hold my breath for so long! LOL! I haven't seen anything like that in my astronomy software, so I'm leaning towards some kind of anamoly with the scope where I had it focused. This leads me to my next question...

Lens and mirror care/cleaning...
Yes, I know keep the dust caps on whenever I'm not using the scope...been doing photography work long enough to know that. Are there any special considerations I should know about when cleaning the lenses and espeically the mirror? I know sooner or later its gonna aquire -at least- a little dust...beween my house being quite dusty, have 4 cats and 3 dogs and living about a mile from a steel mill, its inevidable that this thing is gonna collect some dirt along the way. I -assume- one would use lens paper to clean this all with and I'm sure that great care should be taken when it comes time to clean the mirror...anything else I should know about?


Latitude & Longitude question...
I went to a website called Geocode and entered my address in so I could get my exact lat & log and the results came up with two different sets of numbers..."decimal degrees" and "deg:min:sec" ...which set of numbers is more commonly used (i.e. which set should I use as reference for my scope)? Degrees, hours, minutes, right ascention...this is getting a little confusing!

Compass question...
This may sound like another dumb one, so please bear with me! I was able to acquire a half way decent compass this week...its an automobile compass, buts its a nicer one (found it laying next to a Taco Bell drive thru!). It has calibrations on it and I have it set based on the position of my house, which again according to the maps I looked at, seems to be pefectly square to North. Now, according the the instructions for this unit which I found online, the reason it has calibrations is because car engines create eletro-magnetic fields (makes sense...alternator's etc). I'm planning in the next week or two, weather permitting, to head out to a friends house, who is a little outside of the city limits (I'm right smack dab in the middle of serious light pollution here at my house), so a compass seems like a handy thing to have for these types of outtings :-). Also, later this year when the weather warms up, I/we are planning on heading out to my folk's camper (private campground out in the middle of nowhere), so again a compass seems like it will be handy for setting up and initializing the scope. My question is...are there any other type of electromagnetic fields that I should know about? My friend does live near some high tension power lines...will this cause the compass to go all wonky? If all else fails, I've learned how to recognise Polaris, but I also know that its not "exactly" North...close, but not precise.

Weather...
Over the last few days, I've come to understand why many serious astronomers have a colladeral interest in meteorology as well! LOL!!! For me at the moment, this isn't a serious concern...beyond knowing when the sky is going to be clear, but just for references sake, can anyone suggest a website that has some definations on weather terminology...stuff like Stratus clouds, cumulous clouds, etc.?

Aloyone...
This one isn't a big deal either...just another curiousity. While looking around this eve with the scope, we found the star Aloyone (at least I think that was it) and its surrounding stars and my wife commented that it looked like a "tea cup with a spoon hanging on the side". I know I've heard this referenced before, but I simply can not remember where or in regards to what...does anyone have any info on this? The star was off to the right and little up from the constillation Orion.

Okies...I think thats all for tonight (hehehehe). I do have some Meade specific questions, but I'll bring those up on the Meade forum I found on Astronomy.net. As always, thank you tons for the info, wisdom, expeience and patience! BTW, I did take a look thru some of the other stuff on this website earlier today...some neat stuff :-). I may have a question about "collimation" later tomorrow...I'm gonna check the mirrow alignment tomorrow during the day time as I think that could be one of the reasons I'm having such a problem aligning the viewfinder (even though the view finder is just a pain to align)...I never really checked it when I set up the scope.

Bright Blessings all!
Jim