Hi Raoul,

Seems like anytime one applies new and or advanced technology to a setup to enhance the performance, the equipment becomes extremely demanding, time flies bye, you become impatient due to the cold and end up somewhat frustrated. But, the reason we put ourselves through this (doing the pee pee dance all night while shivering) is rewarding when the outcome is revealed with success from that new gadget and those cool pics.

Yes, those lights are annoying. I thought of getting 4 large party balloons, secure them to a lightweight 2x2 cloth at the corners, then attach a long string and float the cover up to the light until the cloth surrounds the light, then tie the string off to the pole. When you're done viewing, just pull the balloons down.

I've had only one day of viewing do to rain and clouds since the Leonoids peak and there was 100% humidity in the air. Jupiter was great, showing 3 bands but no red spot. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto were easily viewable all in line along with 2 more unidentified moons (2000 mm at 160 power). Moved over to Saturn for a quick look (160x & 286x) and then to the Orion Nebulae. I was amazed at all the detail I could see despite the lousy local atmospheric conditions and that made the cold night joyable. After becoming tried of blowing the relentless dew off the lens with a hair dryer and spending more than an hour performing the polar drift method for a precise tracking setup, I gave in for the night. The next day the clouds were back.

SteveS