I was planning on taking a ride out to Del Valle tonight, but being a bit wiped out from work I decided to stay home and rest - I've been working under a fast approaching deadline to develop a web site and I could think of nothing better than taking a night off. Well, by 10:00pm I got a second wind and I was ready to take a look at the night sky.

At 10:00pm it was still pretty windy with unsteady seeing. By about 11:00pm the wind died down and the seeing had gotten much better. So, I setup my short tube 80 refractor in the backyard, pulled out the 10x50 bino's and went hunting. I've been wanting to find M57 for some time, so I pointed my scope to where it's supposed to be in Lyra and found a very faint fuzzy at 20X. Then I boosted the power up to 40X and it began to resolve. Then I tried 57X with the Ultrablock filter and with averted vision I could make out not only the ring shape but the inner ring too! I went all the way up to 114X with the Ultrablock filter, and the ring nebula was still in my sights. I know that M57 is listed at mag 9.0 but it seemed a lot easier to find than some of the galaxies I've tried hunting down at that same magnitude.

Since the seeing was pretty good for this area, I thought I'd try splitting SAO 67315, the double double. Surprise! I pumped the scope up to 114X and I was able to split the darn thing. I even tried a star test and noticed a lot less turbulence with the better seeing - I just began to see the Airy disk and rings. Of course, there was still enough turbulence in the atmosphere to prevent a perfect star test, but then who expects a perfect star test in the East Bay?

I spent a lot of time scanning the sky with the 10x50 bino's. By around 12:30 I was able to walk out onto the brightly lit street and see Jupiter rising in the south-east. Then I took a look at the south and found Antares (in Scorpius) and then M4, M6, M7, M8 and M20 in Sag.! Not bad for a light-polluted urban area. I think the wind cleared out a lot of the haze tonight. I'm truly pleased with my short tube 80 refractor, it's really amazing what a 3" scope will show you.

I find that my solitary viewing is almost like meditation - very relaxing, energizing and enjoyable. The backyard really offers a lot of nice, little surprises and the convenience cannot be beat!