We had reasonably clear weather and good Saturday night public-viewing crowd at Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill tonight. The main telescopes were not nimble enough to track 2002 NY40, but three of the local amateurs (Bill Ferris, Brent Archinal, and Padraig Houlahan---"amateurs": two PhD astronomers and one of the better-known amateurs!) had their own Newtonians set up on our patio area and picked up the asteroid. Very easy to see once found. It seemed to me as though the brightness was varying greatly over the course of 20 minutes or so, but it could have been illusory due to scattered light (Moon and necessary on-site lights). The three showed the asteroid to dozens of people each. One difficulty was having to change the description of the star-field moment-by-moment, and of course to find the asteroid if someone bumped the telescope. Bill, Brent, and Padraig had their hands full keeping up with the thing whether their telescopes were tracking or not. Bill seemed less successful with his equatorial mount than the others with alt-az mounts. Had lots of good discussions with visitors about impacts, asteroid searches, the ridiculousness of blowing up asteroids anytime soon, etc. Many people got genuinely excited being able to see something moving in the sky real-time. having the knowledge that this rock was at the distance of the Moon whizzing overhead. A "public outreach" success. \Brian -- This message is from the AZ-Observing mailing list. See this message's header if you want info about unsubscribing or the list's archive. This is a discussion list. Please send personal inquiries directly to the message author. In other words, do not use "reply" for personal messages. Thanks.