Last Day on Mt. Bigelow

1/13: Today, I woke up around noon, ate breakfast, and got ready for the day as I did each day up here. But today was the last we are going to spend here in the observatory, so to make it especially memorable, we went on a special trip to nearby Summer Haven on Mount Lemmon. While there, we went on a nice long hike up towards the highest areas of the mountain, while appreciating the great scenery and beautiful homes along the snowy trail. After the hike, we all went down to the Mt. Lemmon General Store/Gift Shop, and partook in the great Carthage tradition of buying some delicious fudge from the general store. We then headed back to the observatory for the last night of observations.

During the night, everyone finally had a perfect opportunity to get quality images of the galaxy/nebula that they chose to view, along with some additional images of Jupiter & Saturn that unfortunately weren't as good as the previous nights, due to approaching air masses that caused some interference with the telescope. But other than that, it was a very productive final night at the observatory.