For some time California has been getting quite a bit of rain. While this might be good for the garden, it does not help astronomers one bit. Since last weekend at Fremont Peak (FP) was a wash due to clouds that were attracted by the large number of telescopes, when our local star popped out from the clouds it was time to pack up and try it again.

I arrived at FP about 2:00 pm. There were already four or five people set up. I picked a good spot to set up my NGT-18 and got ready for the coming night. Local conditions can dictate how one will spend one's time at FP. If the fog comes in and blocks some of the local light pollution, FP can be dark. However, if the fog does not come in, light pollution can be a real problem.

On Saturday afternoon when I arrived there were several dark clumps of cloud matter over the peak. However, they were gone soon after the sun went down. However, the fog did not come in so the sky did not get as dark as is possible from this location. As a result, looking for really faint stuff was out of the question. There were some thin high clouds early but these were gone by 11 or so. The sky transparency was pretty good, seeing seemed to come and go. At its coldest, it was in the high 30s. There was a slight breeze late, no more than 10 mph.

I first checked out M1, the Crap Nebula. It seemed sort of washed out and not well defined. However, with a 22mm Panoptic (about 94x, used for most observations), several dark splotches were seen. Next was NGC 2024 in Orion. With the 22mm I saw three different patches of nebula, with one looking somewhat long and thin, brighter than the other portions. I noticed four stars within the nebula itself and three of these seemed to form an irregular triangle. Next was M42. Let your imagination take over for this one! M82 showed some nice dark patches and knots while M81 was a diffuse blob. M97 seemed somehat round, with two darker patches or eyes.

By this time I was ready to do a little galaxy hunting. M95 and M96 both looked nice but with little detail seen. I also looked at NGC 2467 a nice little cluster and nebula. This object reminded me of a little M20 (Trifid Nebula) because of its shape. Several dark areas or rifts were noted. NGC 3628, M66, and M65 all looked nice. NGC 2775 was small and round with an almost stellar center while NGC 2903 was elongated with perhaps a hint of molting with very dim arms. NGC 2976 showed some darker spots while NGC 2985, 3077, 3155, and 3166 were all small with no detail. Decided to go after some Herschel objects. Looked at galaxies NGC 4147, 4150, and 4203. These were somewhat dim and no detail was noted. Ended with M51, spiral arms and all.

Finally called it a night at 2:00 am or so. Was up about 5:00 am to look at Hale-Bopp. With 11x80 binoculars, I estimated the tail to be perhaps 4 degrees or so although others will surely not agree with me. With a 17", F4.6 Dobsonian at about 100x, the view was very nice. Also looked at Mars. Saw a Polar Cap and several dark markings on the surface with a 12" LX200