The evening of May 31, 1997, provided a taste of summer weather at Fremont Peak State Park, near San Juan Bautista, California. I arrived in midafternoon, and set up in the southwest parking lot, overlooking the coastal plain. Declining temperatures from the very hot day had started a substantial sea breeze, that chilled us all and caused worries about off-shore fog coming inland and up the hill, but the wind died by the end of twilight, wind-chill temperatures climbed to comfortable, and no fog appeared. A long lane of high cirrus, extending NE/SW, was not far off shore at sunset. During the first half of the night, it drifted sideways over us, but after a gossip and night-lunch break at midnight, it passed on to the east, leaving clear sky and good seeing.

I had several telescopes, for a multi-part observing session. As I recently reported, I had had excellent luck pushing faint-galaxy observations with my Intes Maksutov well beyond what most people consider the limits for six-inch aperture, and in relatively bright, moonlit sky, too. I was anxious to repeat and continue that work in better conditions, and I did. At 121x, I observed NGC 4565A, 4565B, 4565C, 4559B, 4559C, 4286, and 4525. While I was looking at the region of NGC 4565, another observer asked for a peek. His comment reminded me how important it is to learn and practice, practice, practice, the skills of deep-sky work. He remarked that with averted vision, he could detect 4565: Yet, the companion galaxies I was chasing down, are three or four magnitudes fainter.

I switched to my 98 mm f/6.7 Brandon refractor for a Messier hunt. My Messier survey with this instrument is now almost complete -- I could have finished it that night, except my setup location did not have a good view of southern Sagittarius and Scorpius. Four inches and low magnification are a winning combination for Messier hunting -- all the objects are apparent at a glance, and at only 53x with an Erfle eyepiece, they were easy to find as well.

I did finish a Messier survey with a Meade model 165, a 50 mm f/12 refractor that is only a small notch up from the dread department-store variety. It has been clear for quite a while that even this tiny an instrument would have no problem chasing down even the most difficult of Messier objects -- I happened to view M74 and M76 early on -- and on this night I logged the last six. The survey was most hampered by the rather rinky-dink 5x12 finder on the little Meade, but it did show slightly fainter stars than I could see with the naked eye, and thus was usable. Between the finder and the rather flimsy mounting that I reported previously, the 165 is not quite a satisfactory beginner telescope, but it is close, and serves as a reminder that small refractors can do yeoman duty for newbie astronomers.

There were some other interesting telescopes and views near my setup area. One person had an Orion ShortTube 80 mm f/5 refractor. I had played with one in the store, but not much in the field. For daytime use, it showed a lot of chromatic aberration, which made bird-watching more fun if not more realistic, but at night that problem was less obvious. The owner had the roof-type 45-degree erecting prism in use for astronomy; thus, diffraction from the crease of the roof left a nice, reflector-type ray across images of bright objects. Even so, this little telescope seemed to be a fairly satisfactory rich-field unit.

Someone else had a shiny new Astro-Physics 6-inch f/7. All were well pleased with it, and several of us had fun pretending to mistake it for the Orion ShortTube -- the two refractors were similarly proportioned and colored.

Several large Dobson-mounted Newtonians were present as well; I had a nice view through an 18-inch f/4.5 Obsession, of galaxies NGC 3222 and 3227, side by side in Leo. The magnification was 50x, low enough that my pupils were not collecting all the light, but notwithstanding, the owner was well-pleased with her new 40 mm Pentax eyepiece for finding, centering, and public viewing with less frequent control inputs.

I left at 3 AM, about half an hour before Moon rise. It was a fine night.