Doc posted this on one of the Yahoo groups so I thought until he updates here this would suffice in the meantime.

It appears that I will finally be able to sit here and complete a sentence at least a bit coherently and only slightly under the influence of all the multi-colored pills parading in front of me. A huge, and really appreciated "thanks" to all of you who wrote both privately, through discussion groups, and directly. Your thoughts did a lot to keep my mind off of things and it is much appreciated.

Things did not go quite as well as expected but I have some terrific surgeons and I owe them far too much money at this point for them to let me slip into the starry abyss. But I am a tough old coot and there are still a few comets left to catch.

I knew that if I took a few days away that Meade would end up in Chinese hands, so I apologize for letting my guard down on that front. (qualifier: I had to say that in case they want to go back in here later today and remove my funny bone.....)

Again, everyone: thank you sincerely.

Dr. Clay
_____
Arkansas Sky Observatories
MPC H45 - Petit Jean Mountain South
MPC H41 - Petit Jean Mountain
MPC H43 - Conway West
http://www.arksky.org/

Got a brief text from Doc's wife to let me know the surgery went well but he is in quite a bit of pain which made for a rough night.

I was not authorized to post this but I thought it important enough to risk life and limb to share with our members and guests here at ASO.

Our founding father and benefactor Dr. P. Clay Sherrod is having some very delicate and serious surgery. He will be hospitalized afterwards for some time and not be able to do what he so loves to do, help other astronomers and observe.

I am urging everyone to keep him in their thoughts and prayers and perhaps drop him a line of encouragement for a full and quick recovery.

No problem Ed.

I am in southern Illinois, about an hour from Cape Girardeau and Paducah Kentucky and about 30 miles east of Carbondale Illinois home of SIU.

Hi Ed,

Welcome to the ASO forums!

The best thing to do is sign up for a free account at one of the photo sites like Flickr or Photobucket. After uploading an image to your account then next time you post here you can insert a hyperlink, third icon from the left on the bottom row above the text box.....it looks like a globe and a page with a folder upper right corner. You will need to know the URL of the photo and insert that between the square brackets enclosing the url. I usually have the other site open in another tab (Windows XP) and then copy what they tell me is the link to the photo.

Good luck!

Just a quick note to our members and guests who like to observe the rings of Saturn.
Tonight, 28 April 2013 Saturn will be at opposition so get out your favorite eye pieces and camera gear! Here in southern Illinois it does not look like the weather will be cooperating so I am hoping to see some fantastic photos posted in the next few weeks. If you miss viewing tonight there will still be a few weeks in which to catch a view.

I agree with, very nice job!

There are some pretty spectacular places on Petit Jean from which one can take in the surrounding country but the west end is definitely one of my favorite places on the mountain.

James,

Here in southern Illinois we had similar weather to what Ron witnessed, clouds. There was a slight clearing to the extreme west but that was not until after the sun dipped below the horizon, but that was a beautiful and colorful event in itself. My biggest event of the day was making dinner for my wife to celebrate our 35th anniversary.

Hi all,

I was asked to pass along a little information regarding ASO's hosting services. Much like a lot of other things it appears that the hosting service is now located out of the country and they have be3en having problems causing issues with the site. Things like not being able to access, slow loading and other things are out of the control of ASO personnel. After some communication between Doc and the hosting service things appear to be getting back to normal and perhaps even a little better.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Hello Roger,

Welcome to ASO!

I am no expert by any means but make sure you have downloaded and installed both Crystal Reports Runtime and .NET Framework 2.0 or above.

Ron,

As always I double checked the link before I posted about it. That being said I just tired the link and I got the same so I am thinking that the page was taken down for some reason.

I got this from the recent Astronomy magazine online and thought I would pass it along.

"The two brightest asteroids put on fine shows in January. Both Ceres and Vesta reached opposition and peak visibility in December, but they remain 7th-magnitude objects and show up easily through binoculars. They lie among the background stars of Taurus the Bull. Ceres appears a couple of degrees southwest of the 2nd-magnitude star Beta (β) Tauri. Vesta stands about 2° north of 1st-magnitude Aldebaran."

The star chart is here;

http://tiny.cc/3hcrqw

I have not seen those types of things would happen at that temperature. That being said my telescope is housed in an observatory and therefore shielded from the wind, until the roof is rolled open.

It has been years since I did any winter camping and then that was as a Boy Scout leader.....we did Okpik which is the Inuit word for Snowy Owl. Now I shudder to even think of getting out in cold weather.

My oldest son did get me a great app for my iPhone called Starmap Pro, it even has the ability to control my scope though I doubt I would ever do that. I also downloaded a free app called SkyView which uses the phones camera and superimposes a view of what can been seen from ones current position, it has been a great training aid for the grand kids.

My time up here in the frozen north is almost over and I will be heading back home this Saturday morning. Hopefully everything in the observatory is still in one piece and I can get back to some observing, 2013 pormises to ge a good year for that!

I just wanted to wish everyone on ASO a very happy New Year!

May your 2013 be filled with many wonders of the night sky!