I thought there was an off-shore windflow this evening, so for tonight's eclipse/comet combo I went west to the Ben Lomond ridge west of Boulder Creek. I had a pretty good northerly final view of Hyakutake from there last spring.

I saw lots of eclipse & comet watchers gathering at the cafe parking lot at the summit of 17.

There was fog & smoke in the low parts of Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz, but the Empire Grade Rd following the Ben Lomond ridge was clear.

The Boony Doon Village airport was fully fenced off and locked. The roadside on the east side of the strip did not have a view in the desired directions.

Further north, I encountered lots of people parking along the shoulder of the road, all the way to its northern end. Not at all the deserted place I enjoyed to myself last spring. Cars coming & going about every 5 minutes, with high beams and high speed. I hope they all stay away after tonight's special event.

The view of the comet was fairly good, with 7 degrees of ion tail visible with binocs and no dark adaptation. But nothing to compare with 4am views last week from Pinnacles. I took another set of pictures.

The eclipse was more fun. The dim orange part looked translucent to me, like a ping pong ball lit up dimly from inside. I wish I had planned on doing an eclipse multi exposure, if that's possible with my over-computerised camera.

At 8:30 the comet lay just above some horizon scum but the comet itself laid in clear sky. By 9pm, the comet dropped behind local topography and also some bay-illuminated low clouds or ridge fog crept westward into that area. At that point, everyone drove off back home, even though the eclipse was only 2/3rds thru. I lingered a tiny bit more, and then dashed back myself to find an urgently-needed bathroom.

On the drive back, the road down to Felton was blocked off due to a traffic accident, and the road to Santa Cruz had a second accident being cleared.

Santa Cruz was too foggy to see stars. I wonder whether the coast somewhere north of Santa Cruz was clear; perhaps Jay can report on that.

-- Duane Sand, d.sand@ix.netcom.com