It's been some time since I've ventured much further south than San Antonio Valley for my observing sessions, so Saturday I decided to head south for Pacheco SP. I had consulted a map on Friday night and decided that I would try taking Highway 5 as an alternate route. I live in El Cerrito and I didn't cherish the thought of spending Saturday afternoon driving down 880 through San Jose and on to 101. I had the idea in mind that I'd better get to Pacheco before 5:00pm so I would have enough time to setup while it was still light, have some dinner and relax for a little while. Highway 5 turned out to be a good choice. I made it to Pacheco via 580 to 5 in just about 1:45 hrs. and the trip back only took me 1:30 hrs.. Total mileage to Pacheco is 127 miles from El Cerrito. One item of interest is that Highway 152 east of Pacheco is really an easy drive as it splits into a divided four lane highway. For East Bay and North Bay TAC'ers, Highway 5 is the only way to get to Pacheco.

I arrived before dark and immediately recognized a few familiar faces. Mark Wagner introduced me to a few people I had never met before, among them was Jim Bartolini who was very helpful (as was Mark) when I had questions or was having difficulty finding an object in the sky. The sun soon set and I was waiting for Polaris to appear in the night sky. Soon I was polar aligned and I turned the little Intes-Micro to Jupiter for a quick look. The seeing was still pretty unsteady, so high power views were out. The air seemed to steady up a bit later in the evening, but 200x was about all I could manage without murky views. Jupiter was quickly sliding out of view when I realized that I had not polar aligned on Polaris - oops!

I had decided to do a mini-Messier marathon that night. Well, things didn't quite turn out that way, but I did log quite a few objects. I spent some time and asked for some help searching for M74 in Pisces and M77 in Cetus. It was really just a little early for galaxy hunting in Cetus and M74 turned out to be extremely difficult. Mark Wagner showed me M74 in the large Dob and that was proof enough for me that it would more than a challenge to see in my 6" Mak. Eventually I gave up on M74 and M77 and decided I would leave them for another night. I did have some very nice views of NGC253 in Sculptor with just a hint of the dark dust lane. Jim Bartolini showed me NGC253 in his 18" Obsession (I think he was using an Obsession, apologies if my info is incorrect) and the dust lane was very clearly delineated - one of the immeasurable advantages of aperture, no doubt. M31 and M32 were very nice and fit well inside the 1.1' field of my Meade 24.5mm SW. M33 was clearly visible with a hint of the pinwheel structure, as was NGC604, a nebulous star-forming region in M33. I was surprised I could see NGC604 in my Intes-Micro, but there it was. Later in the evening M81 and M82 were up so I had a nice look at them too. Jim Bartolini was correct, M82 was showing a nice amount of detail - even in my 6" Mak it was quite beautiful!

I spent a fair amount of time concentrating on globular clusters. I started with M22 and then moved on to M13, M92, M30, M2 and M15. M5 in Serpens still ranks as my favorite globular but I will have to wait until next year before I have another good look at it. Because of the variability of the seeing, I kept to about 74X and occasionally went up to about 120X on the globulars. M15 is remarkably compact and really requires higher power to begin seeing a lot of detail. M30 was probably the most unremarkable of the globulars I've seen. M22 is always a pleasure as are M13 and M92.

This was a big night for meteors and satellite passes. The Iridium flare was spectacular as were most of the shooters that seemed to light up the night sky. If I had to choose a highlight for the evening, it would have to be M37 in Auriga. This was the first time I'd seen M37 in a telescope. I took a close look at M36, M37 and M38 and M37. M37 is so rich and has such a beautiful structure that it just about took my breath away.

One other object that eluded me was the California Nebula in Perseus. Jim Bartolini confirmed that I was in the right place so he had a look through his scope, but it was just not meant to be! I looked for the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros, and while I was able to find the asterism (the christmas tree?) which it surrounds, the nebula itself proved elusive although I was sure I could see a dim haze around the edge of my eyepiece, I could not be certain that I was seeing the nebula itself.

One item of interest to equipment enthusiasts, the Russian made finder on the Intes-Micro is remarkably bad. The finder is advertised as a 12X55 finder although it's really something closer to 8x56. The finder has remarkably poor eye relief and absolutely atrocious edge sharpness. When I focus the finder so that stars in the center of the field are sharp, stars around the edge of the field are long arcing streaks. The optics in the scope, however, are absolutely fantastic. I'm still quite impressed by the sharp, contrasty views the Intes-Micro affords so easily. Thanks go out to Jay Freeman for posting his "Multi-Night Review" of his Intes MK67. Based on his review and other reports, the Intes-Micro 603 is proving to be a great friend under the night sky.

There's no doubt that the evening passed very quickly. I knew I had a long trip home so I packed in at about midnight and was on the road by about 12:45. I'm usually careful to stop observing *before* I get tired as this makes the trip home much easier and more pleasant. When I finally arrived home it occured to me that the day seemed like one long moment - it was almost as if I had never left the house at all, even though I knew it wasn't true. Pacheco was a lot of fun, it's dark, has decent facilities, easy access and NO HEADLIGHTS.