On the subject of stars:

Back in the day, again, we had a good friend who designed and built his own observatory in the back yard. It was a 16" telescope, computer driven, in a shed with a retractable roof. He was damned good at spotting with it. Could hone in on a constellation without a chart, just by eyeballing it.

In Bozeman, unlike Seattle, there isn't often fog or clouds in the night sky during the summer. It gets cold as hell, compared to the daytime temps. Huge swings of temperature, when you think about it. From the 90s or even on occasion the low 100s down to the 50s and 40s. Often.

We were in his back yard, with another friend's dad and his 15" telescope. It was one of those clear, crystalline chilly Montana summer nights. And dark out there in the Four Corners neighborhood where he lived. We waited while the guys set up the telescopes, and waited. The dad had his chart. Our friend was swooping between self-named constellations, and showing us cool stuff. Like the "teapot constellation" aka Sagittarius. And the "cheerio galaxy"... um, I got nothing scholarly there to report- only it did look like a cheerio, and was cool.

The dad had some really amazing stuff to show us, and then the whole conversation bogged around telescopes and equipment. Which figures. But was boring. It was late. The beer was gone. I wanted to go home. So we did.