New moon, time to go observing. The wife is out visiting relatives, so I can, if I want, stay out quite late. I'm strongly tempted to go down to Pacheco Pass, but unfortunately, Saturday is chore day and they just didn't get done in time to make it there before sundown. Fortunately, HVAG saved the day by having a star party at Grant Ranch, and quite a mob of telescopes turned up, everything from 90mm to 17 inches. The night was clear, but the seeing was unsteady at best and awful at worst. No dew, for a change. And the wild pigs, no doubt put off by the herd of astronomers, were elsewhere as well.

Last time I'd been poking around in Perseus, heading generally eastward along the Milky Way. This time, I thought I'd go in the opposite direction and see what's what in Cepheus since I'd never observed in that constellation before. Started at 7789 in Cassiopeia, mainly because it's such a fine cluster and it's near the border. Telling myself I was "just starhopping", I went to M52, also a nice view, but still not quite to Cepheus, either. Still on the way, I stopped off at 7635, a planetary that is right on the border. This fellow has some of the blinking planetary behavior. Look straight at it, and it's essentially stellar. Look to the side and it becomes a fuzzy little puff.

Finally! Over the border we go, and the first stop is 7510. This is a really cute little cluster. It's small, yes, but it's bright and shaped rather like a miniature version of the "vee" in Taurus (bit smaller angle between the two branches). Very nice; I recommend it. There is another planetary, I.1470, just beyond 7510. I hunted for this one for quite a while without success, but I was sure I was in the right place. Feeling quite certain Wil Tirion didn't sneak a symbol onto the chart just to famboozle me, I got out the diffraction grating. Sure enough, all the stars in the field save one resolved into spectra, but that one stayed round if a bit fuzzier. Took off the diffraction grating...looks like 'just another star'. Tried the averted vision bit to see if this one was another blinker, but it always remained starlike. Not a wowzer, that one. Cluster 7380 was next. It's one of those small ones that's hard to pick out of the Milky Way background (pretty dense in this area) but it was there. Then on to Delta-Cepheus and the two small clusters just beyond, 7261 and 7281. These were being fairly shy about showing up out of the background, which had many more than two knots of stars in it. As I went forward once again, this time aiming for 7235, I found myself in a contortionist's position. Cepheus was getting so near the zenith that I was finding myself more under the telescope than sitting at it. Auto mechanics may find this a normal sort of posture, but for me it was becoming somewhat of an irritant. I'll have to go back into Cepheus some other time.

Having been knocked off the "plan" (such as it was), I went back to revisit a couple of the new (to me) items from last session. Since the sky was darker this time than last, another shot at 891 seemed worth it. Besides, that means starting at delta-Andromeda, and that colorful double is always worth a look. With tonight's unsteady air fuzzing the stars somewhat, the color contrast was quite nice, if not pin-sharp. Anyway, on to 891. Find the quadrilateral of stars...there...go to just...ah! What's that cigar-shaped faint fuzzy? Yes! And it even agrees with the orientation shown in the atlas. Using averted vision, there was a hint of the central dust lane in that the cigar seemed to be two parallel cigars rather than one big one. OK, if I found 891, maybe I can see some spiral pattern to M33, too. Boing, boing, boing, a-starhopping we will go-- saying hello to cluster 752 on the way--and there, fuzzy as always, is M33. Although it seemed a bit brighter and more distinct than last time, I still can't really say I saw any sort of spiral pattern in it. (At this point, I noticed some of the early warning signs of aperture fever..."if I had just a little more brightness" kept running though my head. Uh oh.)

Well, now what? I felt myself falling into the "old favorites" mode, so a new plan was needed. OK, instead of cruising the Milky Way westward into Cepheus, it's eastward into Auriga! Charge! But first, time for a break. Time to go see about all the other scopes, and vampirically sneak looks at what everybody else was finding. But a break must have been a popular idea at the time, because a lot of the scopes were just sitting there with no one around them. People had gathered into knots and were having a generally good time chatting and/or doing binocular/naked eye viewing. Those scopes that were working seemed to be on Saturn and Jupiter, but suffering from the poor seeing. I'd had more or less my fill of the gas giants the prior evening, having spent several hours out in front of the house showing them to trick-or-treaters (a great success, by the way. Many of the children were so captivated by the view that they forgot all about taking goodies from the bowl. But I digress.). Walk around, stretch, and (because the breeze had come up more) put on the snow pants and gloves.

Back to it! I started in Auriga at Capella, and for a lark dug out the diffrac- tion grating to see what its spectrum looks like. Bright, colorful, but nothing special like absorbtion bands evident. Down a chain of stars to 1857, a small cluster more or less centered on one fairly bright star and thus doubly difficult to pick out of the background. Further down to M38, very nice. Spent some time poking around this area, which is indicated to be full of nebulosity and two more clusters, 1907 and 1893. The former was there, but the latter I could not see well. I did not notice the nebulosities. From here on star-hopping was more or less replaced by cluster-hopping down the M38, M36, M37, M35 "chain". What a brigade of big, brilliant, bright, beautiful clusters!

There are three smaller clusters in the immediate vicinity of M35. While looking for 2158, which is on the edge of M35, I noticed a decidedly nebulous-looking spot not far from M35 in the direction of 1-Gemini, but there was no nebula plotted on the star chart. It did not seem to be associated with the clusters (M35 or 2158). I wonder what it is. No mention in Burnham's of any nebula there, either. Any of you out there steeped in Gemini-lore, please speak up. I didn't pick out I.2157, but did find 2129, the other two clusters not far from M35. 2175 was the next objective, but I stopped by eta-Gemini on the way to see if the shown nebulosities were visible--no. Neither was 2175 especially evident standing out from the Milky Way; there were several knots of stars, any one of which could have been it. Looking at the chart, I noticed the Crab nebula was only a skip away, so off to 123-Taurus and...there it was, just beyond. Surprisingly easy, given the stories I'd been told of the Crab's faintness. No detail, though, only a white puff with fuzzy edges. Well, if the Crab is findable, how about that other supernova remnant in the vicinity of 112, 125, and 136 Tauri? Go back up the Milky Way, put on the O-III filter, and....nothing. Not even a hint. Skunked.

Time for another break. Get up, stretch, go off to see what the others are doing. My goodness, it's Napoleon in Russia all over again! That cool breeze has driven most into retreat. Few are left, and many of them are contemplating fleeing as well. What? But's not even 11PM yet! I did find the guy with the 13" Coulter was looking at a very, very red star. He didn't know exactly where it was on a star chart, though. It was located by a pull straight down on the Dob. mount from Vega, and a little to the side. The hunt to find out what star that was ended up involving 4 of us, a couple of computers and three telescopes. I suspect that I was in the general vicinity, but that with my smaller aperture I wan't gathering enough light to see the color (there's that want gland swelling associated with aperture fever again...why do images of a C14 OTA keep showing up in the back of my mind?). Mixed in with this was a look through Pentax eyepieces for someone interested in them (conclusion, the seeing was so bleah that all the eyepieces tried gave equally fuzzy views).

About this time, after the foiled hunt for Little Red, I noticed my eyes were starting to get that worn-out feeling. But Orion had come up, so for the first time in months, I got to ogle M42. Did it with and without the O-III filter. More nebulosity is evident with the filter, and more details, but there is something jarring about a red Trapezium. Looked as well at the area around zeta-Orionis, but the nebulae there were not showing, with or without the filter. A couple of the others came by for looks at M42, comparing filter with non-filter. After that, I put on the diffraction grating again to show the spectra of blue giant Rigel against red giant Betelgeuse, and with that colorful show, ended the evening.