As I drove over the Dublin summit, it seemed the overcast went on forever. I was really worried. I hoped that even if it was cloudy, at least one other person would be there, and we could go to a Denny's or Lyon's and chat about stars.

But as fate would have it, the overcast broke up as I descended into the flatlands around Pleasanton. There were spotty clouds over Livermore, but it was clear to the south, where Del Valle is.

In addition to being only 50 minutes away (I've timed it driving like a lunatic, and driving calmly and reasonably, and it seems to take the same amount of time!), the drive is very easy -- no curvy roads!

I arrived at 9:15p and Bruce Jensen, Bruce Prickett and Adam Shiffman were already there. There was plenty of space for our five scopes (I took both the 13" Dob and my Genesis).

Last night was not as good as the night three weeks ago when Bruce Jensen and I observed from there. First, the seeing wasn't all that great. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. Just average. Second, the clouds over Livermore diffused a fair amount of light, so it wasn't as dark. Still, it was good enough to see some pretty faint fuzzies. Thirdly, school's out, so I guess there were more campers -- until about 10:15p, numerous cars went by. Fourthly, it was cold and a little windy. Next time, I'm taking my heavy jacket and a thermos of cocoa! (Sheesh, I hope Lassen isn't too cold!)

Nonetheless, the four of us had a great time. Bruce Prickett brought his Celestron/Vixen 4" refractor (not the fluorite model that Michelle and Mike (?) have been raving about, but a fine instrument nonetheless), Bruce Jensen brought his 8" Meade equ Newt, and Adam brought his Orion shorttube 80mm. There were plenty of binoculars to go around as well.

I worked on the Ophiuchus and Serpens areas, trying to complete all the Messier objects in those regions. The 11x80 binoculars came in very handy, even handheld, for locating key hopping stars and many objects themselves, before viewing them in the scope. Adam's shorttube refractor was great fun, everybody enjoyed the views through it. The Veil Nebula was great through it with a 35mm Panoptic and a narrowband filter -- the whole nebula in a single field of view! I'm sure one or more of those guys will also post an observing report.

M11 was my favorite object last night. It's such a tight open cluster, it seems like a huge globular!

The highlight of the evening came around midnight. There had been talk earlier about rattlers when I crashed through some brush to take a whiz, especially in light of Adam's close encounter with one earlier in the month.

Around midnight, someone said, "shh, do you hear that?" Someone else replied, "yeah, sounds like a rattler!" It sounded like something in the brush far away, but the other guys all seemed pretty convinced it was right across the street. Out came the megaphoton flashlights -- nothing. About twenty minutes later, there it was again! The flashlights searched up and down -- nothing. Finally, it seemed very close. The flashlights searched across the street, then the beams moved closer and closer, until there it was, moving slowly up the street about ten feet from us, making that distinctive shooshing sound...

I walked over and picked up the candy wrapper and stuffed it in my pocket. Lots of laughter!