Saturn!

Clear skies and a new moon last night. Friends and family wanted to do some star gazing. Hauled out a new (for me) telescope and quickly aligned the finder, and waited in the dark for the audience to arrive from bowling. Fireflies twinkling in the dark, deer snorting at me from a nearby pasture. A perfect night.

I was able to find most, not all, of the sights I was looking for: Jupiter and the four visible moons, the Ring Nebula, Hercules star cluster, the double star Albiero, M22 in the constellation Sagittarius. I've spent a lot of time viewing objects in Sagittarius over the years. When looking at it last night there was an object above the constellation that I didn't remember being there. I knew it wasn't Venus because that had set earlier in the evening. Jupiter was also setting in the west. Couldn't be Mars because it wasn't pink enough. I figured it had to be Saturn, and it was! We got a great view of it. Everyone had fun. Anyone who has any interest in the natural world should look through a telescope at least once in their life.