Last night I was lucky enough to see Comet Pan-STARRS for the second time. It was low on the horizon just after sunset and almost impossible to spot with the naked eye due to the light and haze, but highly visible with binoculars. I hope comets don’t portend trouble because there have been quite a few lately, most visible only in the Southern hemisphere. For me they are welcome visitors because I love looking at them.
But the star of the show on March 12th, was the moon, a very thin smiling crescent that sparkled as if it had been sprinkled with fairy dust. It was probably the way the sunlight was reflecting off the lunar mountains at the perimeter that caused this effect, but it was lovely.
To see a VERY cool video taken of the comet from space go to http://www.space.com/20232-spacecraft-sees-comet-pan-starrs-amid-earth-and-mercury-video.html
Before looking for the comet my walking partner Jeanne and I scouted locations where we could see the horizon. Here is a panorama shot I took from a high point. The dirt road that’s barely visible snaking its way up the background mountain in the middle of the shot would have definitely been there when my novel’s heroine, Sara, lived here in the 1930s and for decades before when the stage went through. It is known locally as the toll road. Mountain roads were built at much expense in early California and people with their wagons, horses, and mules had to pay tolls to use them.
Toll Road is on mountain to left of Sugar Loaf (the round mountain on the horizon).
Sand Canyon Almanac 
I think you are on a roll with these space/sky/ufo/experimental flight posts. Middle grade book along this line? x0 N2