Last night (July 15/16) I went out to Henry Coe State Park a few miles away from my home and set up my 12" LX200 in the campground which I had almost all to myself (only one other person and he was asleep). I set up at about 10pm (PST) and by the time I was set up the fog was rolling in below and I had hopes of a good night. Unfortunately there was still an amazing amount of sky glow from farther north; maybe the fog didn't cover the whole Bay Area. Still it was plenty dark above 45 degrees elevation.

My first target was the new comet Brewington. I tried searching around a bit to see if I could just find it but I remembered its position slightly wrongly and had no luck. So out came my Powerbook which dutifully reported the RA and Dec which I punched up on my keypad and bingo! there it was. It was brighter than I expected, though no where near as bright as Hale-Bopp. I repeated the same exercise with Kopff which is much dimmer than Brewington. Hale-Bopp, on the other hand was really easy, partly because I remembered it position better and partly because I could easily see it in my finder. After a bit of heavy breathing and careful pattern matching I was able to see it naked-eye. Its easier now that it has moved out of the brightest part of the Scutum star cloud. --- Its not a bad night when you see three comets!

Next up, Jupiter. Wowie, Zowie! What a view! The seeing was better than I've experienced since I got my LX200. In addition to the usual equatorial belts and the NTB, I was pretty sure I could see the south polar region divided into two zones and three belts (STB, SSTB, SPR). A much more experienced observer last weekend reported seeing ovals in the south polar region. I saw no ovals there but rather saw the zones. Is it possible that we are both right or is one of us exercising a bit too much imagination?

While I was nearby, I couldn't resist (and why should I?) peeking at M20, M8, M16, and M17. The Trifid was very nice with the outer regions of the emission nebula much larger than I'd seen them before. There was lots of little detail visible in M17. I spent some time trying to find the dark "eagle" shape in M16 but I failed. Has anyone seen it with an amateurscope?

Then out came my OIII filter and the Veil. Double Wowie Zowie! I was pretty easily able to trace the entire ring of nebulosity, which I had been unable to do last weekend at Fremont Peak. What a spectacle! I'm running out of exclaimation points!!!...

(OK, maybe you've all seen it before and think "here's another newbie turned on by that old boring stuff". If so, I plead guilty. For my punishment I will observe M13 each and every night I have my scope set up when it is above the horizon!)

I spent a while looking M27 and M57. But M57 was disappointing. It seemed kind of fuzzy no matter how carefully I focused. Then I noticed that the top of my Powerbook was wet. A quick peek at my corrector plate revealed a total dew-out. I'm amazed that I could see anything at all thru it. (This was the first night this summer that I did not bring along my dew shield; Murphy strikes again.)

After packing up, I said to myself, "The dew can't get my eyeballs or my binoculars!" so I sat around for a while waiting for meteors (saw a few faint ones only). I taught myself where to find Equuleus and Lacerta. I found M27 with my 8x56 binocs (but I couldn't detect M57). M31 was at least 2 and maybe 3 degrees wide in the binocs. I think I even saw M110 and M32. M33 was very bright and easy. I was even able with averted vision and patience to see M33 naked-eye.