It was remarkably clear when Lalai and I got home. I moved the old car to the semi-covered parking slot (where the air-conditioners of the unit above drip water incessantly on the car) and Lalai parked the new car at the open parking slot, our slot. Even if there's more dust, there's no water. And dust is easy to, well, dust off.
I saw Jupiter rising in the east, Scorpius with Antares shining in its heart, Ursa Major, and Crux. Decided to take the ball scope up to the roof for another spin.
After lots of adjusting, I got the Rigel Quick Finder centered. Jupiter was fine, small and well-detailed in the Vixen 32mm Plossl (which reached focus without any problems). Not much more detail in the Vixen 12mm Plossl, and much harder to get good focus. Antares showed two horizontal diffraction lines, from my Nils Olof Carlin-style three-vane spider. I saw Dubhe and Merak, and one of them was an obvious close double (I forget which one).
Used the Rigel to star-hop a bit from Antares, looking for M4. Finally found it, but it wasn't even round at 38X, more like a sprinkling of sugar on a brown piece of paper. Yes, the light pollution is that bad!
At least, both the 32mm and 12mm Vixen eyepieces reach focus without fuss. Haven't tried them barlowed yet, but 100X seems to be the maximum for the scope at this time. I'm using Teflon-coated furniture pads to support the ball; they are just a little bit too slick, the scope has a slight tendency to sag. So obviously the ten-pound barbell weight was just right, five pounds would have been insufficient.
Problem is that the furniture pads are rubber-backed, hence they have some "give." And with almost thirty pounds pressing down on them, they certainly compress quite a bit. Which means the scope is wobbly. I have to go look for virgin Teflon pads or maybe PVC plastic sheet. That might work better than the furniture pads.
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