Four observers showed up at the Montebello back-up parking lot on the evening of Wednesday, 9 April. The evening was cool, and there was enough wind that several of us moved our cars to serve as windblocks, perhaps as much for warmth as for telescope steadiness. As darkness gathered, a ranger showed up to check on us -- he knew who we were and was very cordial.

Several of us found Mercury in the far western sky. At 150x in my Intes 6-inch Maksutov, it clearly showed a half-illuminated disc.

Comet Hale-Bopp was running true to form, not obviously affected by the recent solar flare. At 150x, I could see three half-turns of the lawn-sprinkler pattern. In a 10x50 binocular, and naked-eye, I could trace the dust tail to perhaps 10 degrees, and the ion tail to 6.

Seeing was good enough that with patience, I could split sub arc-second double stars, but not steady enough to give rewarding views of Mars. The Moon was more rewarding -- near the south pole, a daylit mountain peeked over the still-dark limb.

We looked for the NOSS trio passage, but did not see it, perhaps because no one seemed to have an accurately set watch. My evening ended with side-by-side comparisons of NGC 4565 in a 6-inch Newtonian at 75x and a 12.5-inch at 60x. The 12.5 won.

At about 11 PM, we called it a night, and yes, I did remember to close the gate on the way out.