Carmel Valley, Sunday Night
By Robin Casady

It was amazing to see a completely clear sky for a change. The sky was steady and dry. Too bad the Moon wasn't up. Oh well, I made do with some of those gray fuzzy things from that French guy's list. It was good to get the opportunity to see M96. I assume that the second bright spot was the super nova. I looked at a number of galaxies, including: M95, M105, M65, M64, M63, M108, M109, M101, M102, M51, M94, M104, M83, M85, M100, M98, and M86. In the six inch scope, some of them were averted vision objects.

M13 was glorious as usual. It seems like it has been a long time, even though I did see it about a month ago. I also visited the globulars M3, M5, and M53. Only two planetary nebulas were on my list for tonight. M97 didn't show much in the 6". I thought I saw the "eyes" for a fleeting moment with averted vision, but I'm not sure. M57 was quite bright, but it was getting late and I didn't push the power further than 120x, or take to time to look for interior stars.

Equipment: Intes MK-67, SkySensor 2000, Panoptic 19mm (95x) and 15mm (120x). The SkySensor 2000 did a good job of putting everything in the field of view of the 15mm.