Hi Folks!
I'm back from my camping/canoeing/astronomy vacation down in the Wayne National Forest. We had a great trip...very fun and relaxing, but I didn't get to use the scope as much as I had wanted do to some mostly crappy weather. I only really had 3 decent nights...the first night my wife and I had been chopping wood all day and I was too tired and sore to set up the scope equipment, but I did get some nice viewing with the binoculars. I do have to say here that I have a whole new apreciation for bino-astroviewing :-) With a decent sky I was able to locate just about all of the major DSO's in Sagitarious (please forgive my poor spelling) and finally did find the Andromeda galaxy as well (thanks to all who gave advice!). This is pretty indicative of how good the sky is down there with good weather as my bino's are pretty crappy. 7x50 and I cant even remember the brand name (got them at a flee market for $10!). Once I figured out where things actually were, it made it much easier to find them again with the scope....my binoculars are now a regular part of my astonomy gear

The second decent night we had, we got some pretty good views of M7, M8 and M22 in Sag as well as the Ring Nebula in Lyra. Unfortunatly, I don't have a dew shield for the scope yet, so by the time we moved across the field to look at Andromeda, the scope had fogged up on us.

By far the best night we had was the last night out there and I rigged a dew shield from empty 2 liter bottles (worked suprisingly well). I'm sure folks who have been out to Arizona wouldn't be all that impressed, but for us city dwellin folk, I have to say if you ever get a chance to head to the Wayne National Forest during good weather, do it! Man what a sky!!!! The wife and I ended up in that field until after 4 a.m. just "star hoppin" and as a bonus, I got my first look at the Pleades! Granted, by this time I already had the telescope broken down for the night, but I did head back out to the field with the bino's for a good look. BTW, just a quick opinion here, but to me the Pleades, thru binoculars at least, looked like a dolphine jumpin out of the water....quite cool indeed We actually spent at least a half hour just staring at the sky. The Milky Way was incredibly prominant and was right over head...something you just can't see from my back yard with all the light pollution....it was simply amazing. I could see sooooo many stars that I literally had some problems picking out the actual constillations! I could have spent the entire night out there just looking at things, but unfortunatly we were leaving the next day and had a great deal of gear to pack and load before we headed home (we actually didn't get on the road until after 8 p.m.). My only regret is that this area is a 3 1/2 hour drive from my house and is a little inconvient for casual star gazing.

I didn't get to do the astrophotography endovors that I had intended, but at the last moment I did rig to get a couple of star trail shots over the forest....I still have a few pics on the camera to blow off, but when I get them back if anything turned out decent I'll get them posted on the astrophotography forum here at UT. I would also like to say that I simply -love- my new little Orion Mak (127mm)! I'm sure the view doesn't compair with a 10" or 12" dob, but I was -very- impressed with what we were able to see with it...I'm starting to feel like an amature astronomer now that I can actually see stuff other then just planets. If your looking for a great little scope on a budget, I don't think these things can be beat! My 4 1/2" Meade sucked big time, but this little Orion just rocks!

Anyways, it was a great trip...I got at least a couple of nights with the new scope, we got 3 canoe trips in, saw -lots- of critters (the one morning we had a doe and -3- fawns pass by our campsite about 50 feet in front of us...a wonderful and special thrill indeed!) and lots of good camping. Again, if your in the Ohio area, especially around the cities and haven't checked out Wayne National Forest for telescope viewing, I -highly- recommend it! The Lamping Holmstead area is on the Darksky.org site and there's an even better area near the Ring Mill camp/recreation area. As long as your on forest land, you shouldn't have any problems. There is a bit of a light dome to the west from Marietta that is quite prominant if theres any fog or overcast skys, but everything else is -very- dark indeed and the sky is truly amazing out there on a clear night. We may head down there again in late August or early September if my wifes work schedule permits and we will definatly head down there again next year for another good long trip (maybe by then I'll have the astrophography thing worked out a little better!).

Bright Blessings and Gentle Breezes All!
Jim