It was that kind of a night at Grant Ranch of the 8th. When I was driving over there around 4:30, the thin high clouds gave every indication of becoming more numerous and thicker. Not a good sign. But....if you don't set up, they will always clear, and if you do, they won't--since you can't win, I decided to set up anyway, repeating the night's mantra "The Forecast Is For Clearing!" over and over. If nothing else, I could get practice setting up and tearing down (right...). The night's plan...none of which got executed...was to look at the spectrum of mu-Cephi, then observe favorites until later and then go down the Milky Way from (roughly) Sirius southward.
Turnout was pathetic (exactly one) before sundown. At sundown, however, a few other optimists began to show up. First were a couple of enthusiastic beginners, husband and wife, one of whom I work with and had talked into coming up. All they own is a pair of binoculars at this point, but they had been reading about the subject and were quite eager. Two more scopes arrived, 12" and 13" dobs. They held off on setting up as the cloud thing was weakly improving to not changing, depending on how Pollyannish you happened to be. By this time, the C14 was all ready to go.
Well, things started appearing. The crescent moon and Jupiter, mostly. So we looked at those and the two dob. owners were encouraged enough to set up, too. And a new Meade 125mm ETX appeared; the owner being a regular who used to have a 90mm one and had just upgraded. About the time he got set up, here came the clouds again, and we more or less lost everything for a while. Seeing that he was not going to be able to find 2 stars to align on, the ETX owner sacrificed himself to the cloud gods and left. Sure enough, it began to clear once again.
Appearing this time, besides Jupiter and Saturn and (now and again) Capella, was a French family (Pere, Mama, et les deux garcon) and a couple more of the regulars. So we all looked at Jupiter, Saturn, the moon (briefly, then it set), and the spectrum of Capella (somewhat washed out by the high haze/cloudiness).
More clouds. General despondency. I looked at my watch. Only 6:30PM! So everyone agreed we could "sweat it out a little" and give the forecast time to happen. And it did. We started to get clearing to the east and southeast. Auriga, then Orion, burst out of their gray veils and sparkled across the heavens.
Ooooo! Open Cluster time. The two dob. owners were busy tracking down all the good ones in Auriga. Fine, fine sights, especially for the photon deprived. I went after the Orion Nebula. Views were great. A 98X in the C14 (lowest mag. I can get), the beast filled the view completely. Tendrils and wisps were everywhere (and they weren't clouds, either!). For the beginners, I did the compare-Rigel-to-Betelgeuse spectrum thing, with Capella thrown in for good measure. Molecular bands in Betelgeuse were very evident, as were the hydrogen lines in Rigel. Capella may have been showing the sodium D lines, but definitely had the H-beta line. As usual, the brilliant color of the spectra was a big hit.
Boom! Clouds again. Rather suddenly everything and everywhere went grey again. So we waited a while, and it began to clear again. More of the usual suspects (Andromeda galaxy, Double Cluster, etc) were ogled eagerly. The opening this time was somewhat more to the north-northwest but didn't last too long.
Fuzzing out...this time we bid adieu to some of the beginners. Les Francais had the boys' bedtimes to consider. By now it was perhaps, 8:00. We waited and got another opening. Now the whole sky seemed to burst open, and there must have been low fog in the Santa Clara valley, because the light dome to the west was significantly reduced from its usual size. But it didn't last. We got in some viewing, but then things went gray again. So we tore down.
No sooner than....it cleared again. Rather than setup again, we simply all sat around and watched the sky. Some just lying on the ground using their built-in 1X7's, others passing binoculars around. Talked telescopes; the beginners were highly interested in getting one, so we discussed ways and means. One of the scope owners has a spare 6" he uses only very rarely, so he gave the beginners his address so they could arrange to borrow it for a while. The conversation drifted from scopes to other things astronomical and then to discussions of the local wildlife (coyotes singing in accompaniement), this to that, until...
The clouds came back. This time they were low ones, and it looked like Hall's Valley was about to fog in thoroughly. Most of the hills around were wearing a gray shawl, and it was thickening and lowering. So we all packed it in and took off. Early evening--it was about 10 or so when we packed it in. Still, a very pleasant outing.