Addendum: Oops, I forgot to talk about the Moon/Mars Conjunction.

I believe the Moon/Mars conjunction was October 2nd-3rd.

Earlier that night I visited my grandma's house and I showed my cousin and my brother some constellations, as well as peeks at Jupiter, Saturn, and Arcturus using the Galileoscope. When we got home we could see the Moon & Mars peeking through the trees, they were very close.

At around 1:30 AM on the 3rd, I went out again to look at the Moon & Mars. I used the Galileoscope again. The setup was sort of pushing the photo tripod to its limits--I had to turn the Galileoscope backwards so I could point the tripod upside down to get closer to the zenith. I had to extend the tripod's neck all the way up as high as it would go, and I had to sit under the Galileoscope on my fold-out chair. (I could have used the FirstScope, which would have been much more ergonomic, but I wanted the crispness of the Galileoscope's excellent objective.)

With the stock Galileoscope 20mm plastic Plossl, the Moon & Mars didn't quite fit together in the fov. I traded it out for my 25mm GSO Plossl (which came with my 6" Dob). It sure looks handsome with a big boy eyepiece in it. 

The view was literally painful. The moon was waaaaaaaaaaay too bright, so I had to go and get my cheap little greenish moon filter (from my old PowerSeeker Accessory Kit) and screw it onto the eyepiece. That showed a pleasant view, with Mars still noticeably red, and a much more easily visible Moon. Seeing the disk of Mars right next to the Moon was pretty cool and a real treat.

I also used the stock plossl and the stock barlow at 50x, then later the 6mm Kellner at 83x, to examine Mars, which was very pretty. It's surprising how good a view of Mars a sharp 50mm f/10 achromat can get. Surface details are faintly visible and the disk itself is just very nice. It's clearly a planet. The Moon was nice up close, though with very little shadows and visible roughness only a day after full. At higher power I didn't need a moon filter.

After I'd had my fill of the Moon & Mars, I turned my attention to the faintest hint of fuzzy nebulosity I could see to the east. It was of course the Pleiades, and it was very pretty with the GSO Plossl. (It's pretty with the stock plastic plossl too, but the eye relief and field of view of the GSO Plossl made it even better.)

After letting my night vision recover somewhat from the assault that was the Moon, I stared at the Pleiades for a while until I could see 3-4 stars with direct vision. Two were easy, the others popped in and out. I do not have good vision. I had made an aperture mask for my 12x50 monocular which reduces the aperture to that of a human pupil, and at 12x it's close to maximum magnification under the 2x per mm rule. I call it the PUPILSCOPE.

With the Pupilscope I could see only four stars in the Pleiades, and they were mostly dim, however they were easier to see than when they were all scooted together in the sky. The Moon was pretty and I'd easily be able to see craters and roughness if the phase had been better--the darkness didn't reduce contrast and resolution by too much.

I also did some testing of a miniature telescope I built recently, which I can't believe I also forgot to mention. Oops. More on that later, when I talk about the four little telescopes I've built.