Since declined joining the Montebello Open Space expedition, I decided to do some observing here from my yard in Boulder Creek. I used my Mighty Meade Maksutov which is of course my trusty 7" LX50. It was clear here this evening but the wind started to pick up after about 10 or so. I usually wait until this time because it seems to get a little darker after folks go to bed and turn their porch lights off. I would say the limiting magnitude was about 5.2, perhaps 5.3-5.4 towards the zenith, away from S an Jose. My elevation here is perhaps 600. My first target was the galaxy M99, listed in my ARIZ2000 database at magnitude 10.5. With a 26mm Plossl (103X), it was a soft glow, large, with a stellar nucleus. It also seemed "fluffy" or coarse. Has anyo ne else noticed this effect? Next on the list was the galaxy M61, at magnitude 10.5. This object was a soft glow of almost even brightness. Magnification did not seem to improve the view: the 26mm was little improvement over the 32mm (83X). I was interested in what I might see when I looked at the next object, the galaxy M100 at magnitude 10.5. I took a picture of this last year with my 18" from a really dark location and noticed several faint galaxies in the frame tha t I did not notice when I was composing the photograph. I was interested to see if I could detect any of these with the 7" from my yard. I thought I might have detected one although it was not distinct enough to make me say for sure. M100 itself looked rather circular and of even brightness. The galaxy M64 at magnitude 9.0 is another object I have a special interest in. I also took a picture of this object and captured the "black eye" that gives this object its nickname. I was anxious to see if it w as detectable with the 7" from here in my yard. Sadly, I cannot say with any degree of certainty that I did indeed see it. However, I did detect what I thought were three levels of brightness: a stellar core, a fainter area around this, and finally a fainter area around this second area. About this time, the wind picked up and blowing branches were activating my neighbor's motion detector lights (installed at my request!!) totally ruining my night vision. So, I decided to have a quick peek at a few globular clusters. First was M3 that sho wed a hint of resolution around the edges at 103X. The last object of the evening was the globular cluster M53. This object is smaller than M3 and somewhat dimmer. I did not get the same degree of resolution as with M3.

Overall, a very satisfying evening considering all I had to do was walk out of my front door to the telescope area.