Back in Rolla

Got back to Rolla tuesday evening after a week on the road via Guadalupe State Park in Texas Hill country, Gunbarrel City, Natchez Trace, Mary Ann's, and home. It's been raining since then but cleared off awhile tonight so I checked out the dob in some pretty dark skies. Even with an almost quarter moon the seeing was pretty good. I used Sirius to measure my finder's fov. It took 10 min 40 sec for sirius to drift from center to edge which comes to about 5 degrees. The 25mm was shorter at 144 sec for half field or about 1 degree. This is what I've been estimating it at. While looking at Sirius, I checked out M41 again. The background seemed almost solid with dim stars and the visible ones were quite colorful. While I was admiring it, a satellite zipped through the field. How neat! I then tried for M81 and 82 in Ursa Major. No cigar although I was close. I'm still not feeling well and clouds were moving in so I gave it up for the night. It was just enough to whet my appetite!