This morning in the sky

OK, that was freaking awesome!
We went outside at six, and of course there was the crescent moon hanging low in the sky, with Venus shining brightly to its immediate left. Above them a little ways was Saturn, as expected, and Mars was much farther up than I expected - almost directly overhead. Directly opposite the moon (spin around with those binoculars), but much higher in the sky, we saw the fuzzy ball of light that was Comet Holmes, the comet that exploded October 23.

Then, at 6:20, we started watching for the space shuttle and the International Space Station, which would be rising just about... oh, darn, right behind that huge tree. Well, wait for it. At 6:23, they popped out from behind the tree, shining brighter than Venus, one following the other. The larger and brighter of the two lights was in front, probably the ISS. They were almost directly overhead Andrews to the northwest, but high enough in the sky to be spectacular, without having to strain our necks!

We didn't see anything from the Southern Taurid meteor shower, which peaked today, but we didn't really expect to. That one produces about five meteors an hour if you're lucky - though those do tend to be really special as meteors go - and I'm not quite that patient.

It almost makes the Ron Paul money bomb pale in significance, but I'll enjoy that, too!

If any of you got up to see any of these wonderful things, post a comment here, would you?