Well, it was clear on 3/8 so there was quite a crowd at Fremont Peak. When I arrived, there were already several dedicated souls who were left over comet nuts from the previous night. Since I was primarily interested in deep sky observations, I decided to set up well away from the comet crowd. As the afternoon progressed, more and more people showed up.

There must have been 30 or so telescopes. It seemed to be Astro-Physics night as there were several lined up in a row. Most impressive was the 7" f-9; very scientific. There were several large dobs, multiple SCTs, and another NGT-18 besides mine. I thought the most impressive was the 12.5 f-7 homemade Newtonian. This was a beautiful telescope and was in Sky and Telescope a few years back. I do not recall the the owners' name and I did not have a chance to look through it but it was perhaps the most beautiful telescope I have ever seen. Very fine work.

As the sun set, it was time to get to work. The seeing was poor, transparency fair to poor. There was no fog to block some of the local lights, so the limiting magnitude was between 5.2-5.5. It was of course somewhat better at the zenith. There was periodic wind and the temp was in the high 30s. Surprisingly, comet Hale-Bopp was visable briefly over the trees. Swung the NGT-18 but the comet was a bit tooooooo low!

Started with NGC 1964, a galaxy. The magnitude is listed to be about mag. 11.6 or so. With a 22mm Panoptic (about 95X), it was a dim oval haze. NGC 2215, a small open cluster was a little gem, about two dozen stars in a nice field. NGC 2232 was a larger and brighter open cluster.

Next was the Rosette nebula (NGC 2244). The cluster in the center was easy, the nebula was a bit harder. I detected it by noting that there were spots with no stars. Parts were very dim. Looked like a fainter version of the Veil Nebula. NGC 1999 is supposed to be a dark nebula. I'm not sure if I saw this one, especially since I have no idea what it is supposed to look like. NGC 2022 was a small planetary, a mini M57. NGC 2613, a galaxy, looked like an oval blob with a dark knot or divide in the upper portion.

Next over to M105 and NGC 3384 and 3389. These three were rather bland blobs of light but looked nice with a 32mm (about 64X).

Next over to M65, M66, and NGC 3628. M66, the "fat" galaxy offered some suggestions of arms. There were knots and brighter patches in the glow surrounding the stellar center. M65 was a long sliver of light, a brighter center extending to a thin sliver of light. Finally was NGC 3628, a galaxy. This was an exteneded sliver of light. It seemed to be bisected by a dark knot or band. This seemed easier to see that the similar feature of M104.