Just a quick note to say that we had a fun group at Del Valle last night. I arrived at 10:30 to find Bruce Jensen and Paul Sterngold cruising for galaxies with their Big Dobs, while Adam Shiffman and David Silva had deployed a Alter 603 and a Pentax 75 mm apo. Having spent the evening teaching my 2.5 year old how to use a track ball while Norene did Toastmasters, I brought only a chair, a table, a map, and binocs. The other guys offered cookies and tales of a buzzed out holy-roller mountain biker, who combined intoxication with religious fervor and a bad attitude. Glad I missed him.

The sky was a little hazy, but cleared noticeably at midnight. The mosquitoes were numerous and busy.

Highlights for me were:

Hunting down easy M objects with the binocs

Seeing 2 supernovae through Bruce's 18" Starmaster

Seeing M3, M13, M5, and Omega Centauri through either big dob (definite eye-gasms)

Finding Omega Centauri with my binocs as a big fuzzy spot scraping the ridge top

Tracking Markarian's chain with Paul's 13"

Seeing various galaxies & nebula through David and Adam's nice scopes

A bright green bolide that slowly cruised down in the southwest, showering sparks as it dropped below the southern ridge line - I was the only witness, but it made MY day :-)

numerous meteors (Lyriads?) all evening

Coyote howls and racoon (?) snarls off in the distance

I bailed at 1:30, leaving Paul and Bruce bantering about obscure NGC objects

On the way out, a racoon sauntered across the road, confirming in my mind my identification of the frequent snarls we had heard at the observing site.

Great mid-week evening out! Next time, I'll bring my scope and bug spray :-)