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Frankly that was a marvelous night of observation. A classic. Snow on the ground and it was cold and clear.

First up was a fine observation of 887 Alinda, a close pass asteroid in Gemini. This asteroid is cooking. I was able to navigate to the area fairly quickly but the SAO numbers for reference stars in Sky Tools were incorrect. Fortunately I had the Henry Draper number of the star that the asteroid was going to pass. It took about 15 minutes of observing to see which 9th magnitude "star" was moving against the background. Both Kent and I found it fairly fast. It is moving! Within 10 minutes you can see a change in position easily. The mountain size rock is 7.6 million miles away and that is close by asteroid standards, hence the rapid movement against the night sky. Fun observation. Did I mention how fast it moves?

Mars...............What can I say? The occultation was just magnificent. I settled on a combination of 12mm Brandon and then switched to an 8mm Brandon as Mars came on to the limb of the full moon. The high contrast of the Brandon eyepieces gave a black background against the bright full moon. There were several unexpected observation both telescopic and naked eye. As the Moon approached Mars the planet seemed to become dimmer comparatively, when viewed with the naked eye. If you covered the full moon with your thumb, blocking it out, Mars seemed to increase in brightness and resume it's red color. Amazing visual effect. At 100x telescopically,? the disc of Mars was fair size so its ingress into the moon was quite a sight but the best was yet to come.

Waiting for Mars rise on the Moon, one hour later, watching the limb of the moon at power, was a nerve wracking experience. But as Mars rose over the lunar horizon it was like standing on the moon yourself, looking at the horizon, and seeing a magnificent Mars rise over the hills. No kidding. The color of Mars cannot be accurately described against the white surface of the moon. It was a burnt orange not to be forgotten. Additionally, the detail that was available on Mars was amazing. Due to the contrast of brightness of the moon it made everything on the red planet stand out clearly. I have never seen this effect before. I saw Mars as clearly as with a filter. This was totally unexpected. I must say it was profound and perhaps the finest experience in my half century of observing. That one you take to your grave. It was as if you were on the moon yourself at Mars rise. No camera can ever capture or do justice to the sight. Just can't be done. You had to be there.

We quit at 2230 after spending about three hours in the unmelted snow of Kent's back yard. Several others were over there to join us and share in a splendid night. The cold made it much like an expedition to another planet and added to the adventure. One for the books.