On Monday, December 10, 2018 at 5:19:55 AM UTC-8, Mike Collins wrote:


I just found it again from my back yard. Not perfect seeing. I can just
make out the Milky Way but only one star in the bowl of USA minor is
visible. I make it out to about 8 seconds of arc.

8 _minutes_ of arc?
Yes

I find it hard to format my brain in minutes and seconds of arc. I think of
degrees and decimal degrees.
When I wrote planetarium software in the 80s I used decimals and only
converted to minutes and seconds for the final display.
The stars, moon and planetswere plotted manually from Mercator projections
of the zodiac.

Think of the size of the Moon is 1/2 degree, or 30 arc minute, Saturn is about 45 arc seconds and compare?