The local weather reports suggested that a nice day and an even better night would be in the works for Saturday May 31, so I packed up my NGT-18 and headed to Fremont Peak. After arriving and setting up, the clouds that had looked annoying earlier were b eginning to look downright disgusting. There were numerous bands of high clouds drifting through, and the often welcome summer breezes were picking up, suggesting a possible poor night ahead. Sure enough, as darkness fell, the wind seemed to pick up, th e temperature dropped, and the clouds were drifting overhead in a seemingly endless stream. There were examples of almost every telescope design. There was a 20" Dobsonian, two 18" Dobs, a homemade 17" a 15", as well as a 14.5" Dobsonian "as I walk thro ugh the valley of the Dobsonians, I will fear no refractor..." There was a nice new CG-11, a 7" F7 AP refractor, a nice 4" refractor, as well as several smaller Dobsonians present on the peak. The new CG-11 must have been re! sponsible for the clouds: virgin glass is known to attract clouds and facilitate cloud formation.

After spending some time helping the owner of the CG-11 work out a few bugs, it was time to get to work. First was the galaxy NGC 5982 and at magnitude 12.5 made a nice companion to 12th magnitude NGC 5985 with a 32mm (64X). Both seemed somewhat dimmer than their stated magnitudes due to the thin high clouds. Next was the planetary nebula NGC 6210. This object as a vivid blue/green but was somewhat small, even at 120X. No central star was seen and the disk of the planetary seemed of almost even brigh tness. NGC 6015 was an elongated galaxy with a stellar core at 120X, while at 64X the galaxy NGC 5970 was round with a somewhat brighter portion towards the bottom. Of course, the dark lane in the galaxy NGC 4565 was easy at 64X, while the galaxy NGC 61 18 was dim, oval, and had a coarse appearance. The globular M5 was resolved to the core at 64X, while the globular NGC 6522 was dim and looked like a galaxy. Also seen was the planetary nebula IC 1295, with a listed magnitude of 15! Of course, this object was not easy and was seen only with averted vision. The globulars NGC 6539 and 6426 had a very similar appearance; they looked more like galaxies than globulars. The galaxies NGC 6555 and 6822 were small, oval patches of light. The final object I looked at through the 18" was the planetary 6543. This was a very nice object. It was pale blue green, and reminded me of an onion; it seemed layered. The central star was easy and at 196X, a faint extension could be seen to one side.

While taking a break from my observing list, I wandered over and looked at the Veil Nebula through a 17" Dobsonian. This was a very nice object, filling several fields of view. It was interesting to follow or "trace" this object through space with the t elescope. I also had a nice view of the Pelican Nebula. The nebula M17 showed very well in the CG11 at about 300X while the 7" AP refractor and the 4" refractor showed nice views of Jupiter. About this time the events of the last several days began to catch up with me and as I lay down on my cot, I looked up at the Cygnus Milky Way and drifted of for a few hours of much needed sleep.