Last night, Sat. Sept. 27, The Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy (http://www.mira.org) held a star party for Friends of MIRA at the Oliver Observatory at Chews Ridge. Oliver is a research facility with a 36" scope, and not open to the public. ASCC* members also showed up with scopes to provide some relief to the line at the 36" scope.

The weather was clear, but an on-shore breeze became strong enough at about 10pm that Dobs were unusable. I had taken the 6" Intes and GM8, and it had no problem with remaining rock steady in the wind. The seeing was not good, but it did not have as significant an effect as I would have expected in either the Intes or the 36".

In the 36" M57 was surprisingly bright (to me). It didn't look real. M15 was spectacular. It was more impressive than M13 is in my Takahashi. Jupiter and Saturn suffered from the seeing, but quite a few of Saturns moons could be seen. I did count them at the time, but I have forgotten the count. NGC 6946 was large but faint. Since this scope is rarely used for visual observing (CCD mostly) they only have one eyepiece, a Meade 32mm SuperWide (or UltraWide, or something like that). If I remember correctly, that produces just under 300x.

Because of the wind, and a consensus that it was unlikely to die, we called it an early night and most people headed down the hill at around 11:00 pm.

*ASCC: Astronomical Society of the Central Coast is an amateur group associated with MIRA.
http://www.mira.org/ascc/ascc_hom.htm