Hello Friend,

    Finding a good dark sky sometimes, is like trying to find a good Carribean rum punch.  

           Seriously.

At a restaurant here the other night  on Turks Caicos, I ordered my first rum punch on this trip, and usually the 
first one is the best remembered one.

In this particular case, however the only thing I recall is that I had to ask the bartender to pass me the bottle
of angostura bitters.

    It's a must have, if you want an authentic rum punch.  

Last night, on the other hand , I went to a restaurant, way across to the east side of the island (it's not a big island
so it was a 25 minute drive),  and asked the bartender at the bar, if  he was an expert on rum punch.

He told me how his grandfather had taught him the secret to making a good rum punch, way back, and explained it,
so I ordered one.

   Sure enough, this one was the real deal!    The bartender's name also happened to be "Sky", so that was
a clincher right there.

As I was sipping my rum punch, and looking up at the stars, it got me to thinking of some of my most interesting
observing sessions.

    I recalled that one time, I had set up a scope in Mt. Albert, about 40 mins north of Toronto, and a car pulled up
with some people in it.  

Now, they kept their distance as they got out of the car, and were muttering things about, Aliens, Death ray machine,
and other nonsense.  

Obviously, they had no clue that my Celestron 8 was a telescope.

They were still about a 100ft away, and I just basically ignored them, since they didn't seem to intend
any harm, but one must always be prepared regardless, for moose, deer, skunks and the odd troublesome
human.  

Eventually, they just couldn't figure out what the heck I was up to, and didn't bother to ask, and thankfully
they got in their car and left.

Now, had they asked me, I would have been glad to show them, something of interest in the night sky.

That usually gets folks pretty excited, but in this case their fear or misunderstanding kept them away.

I'm sure you may have had similar encounters if you've done any kind of field observing,
,Friend

But fear not, because you still have a few more days, till the end of the month anyway, to take
advantage of the Meade Apo Refractor sale

Here is the link: http://khanscope.com/newEquipList.cfm?catID=1&subcatID=1&manID=1

Clear Skies,

Ray "rum punch" Khan

PS The way the locals drive around here, you'd think they had been drinking rum punches day and night!