Tuesday afternoon I made an hourly check of the satellite image in hopes the high clouds would break. A nice sized hole looked like it just might reach Santa Cruz by nightfall. Having never witnessed an occultation in my young observing career, and being scheduled out of the last 2 new moon weekends I planned to head out if there looked to be any chance at all. I'd even settle for shooting sucker holes. By 5 pm the clouds were thinner than I'd seen them all day and there was lots of blue sky to the north. I headed out to Davenport just as the fog rolled in and was treated to beautiful sunset above an even, fluffy layer of fog. As I entered the gate to my friend's property an owl stood in the middle of the road and then flew off. A good sign I hoped. By the time I set up my 8" dob it was nearly dark.

I knew M25 would be hidden sometime soon so I pointed the scope at the dark edge of the moon and took a peak. Even with a few "heat waves" from the warm mirror and poorish seeing the cluster about to be overtaken was an interesting new view. So far every time I go out there's at least one new look that just gets me jazzed. I spend about 15 minutes patiently waiting for the moon to catch up to the furthest outlying stars and comparing low and medium power views, sometimes with the whole moon framed other times with just the leading dark edge to reduce the moon glare. It's nice to relax at the scope, something I forget to notice the whole experience when I want to hunt down lots of new objects. When the first star of the cluster, a bright orange one (sorry magnitude estimation is a bit beyond me so far), approached the moon I wasn't sure what to expect. At one point it was like trying to split a close double star at the limits of seeing, and then for quite a long while (15-20 seconds) it sat perched on the moon. Then suddenly--- boom--- gone. For some reason it made me laugh out loud. Reminded me of watching a stick float way down the river, appearing motionless until it spills over the falls in a final flash. I watched more of the cluster splash away one by one missing a few by blinks of the eye.

When there looked to be break in the line up I spent the next 10 minutes familiarizing myself with my last northern hemisphere constellations - Pisces, Aries, Triangulum, Cetus and Auriga. I think I could pass the test now! After watching the last stars of the cluster disappear I grabbed the binocs to go after a couple of objects on my list. Stock 2 the muscle man cluster was easy to find near the double cluster, with two arching legs leading to the main cluster making up the torso (I hope this is what I'm supposed to be seeing). In low power of the scope the main body of the cluster was rich and uniform but not particularly inspiring. Much better in the binocs with surrounding star field. Next with map in hand I went for the North American Nebula. I've tried to make this out just about every night at the Peak and I never quite get the effect. I can see the dark Gulf of Mexico region but it never jumps out as a whole. Not much better here. The seeing was not particularly great but it is fairly dark. At least limiting mag of 5 last night. Making a few quick checks of the moon I realized it was going behind the big oak tree before the M25 would return :-(. I'd love to hear a description from someone who saw the whole event.

I set my sights on a few Messier objects in the sky I still haven't observed. M74 was at first barely visible right where I pointed with the telrad, I always feel like a cool guy when that happens. Of course there wasn't much to see with 8", I played with various magnification and practiced some averted vision, but not much popped out except for one quick second when I thought I noticed some spiral structure - more likely it was just out of focus. I've learned to relax and wait to split close double stars, to use averted vision to get "popcorn" resolution of globular clusters, but seeing much structure in faint (or not so faint) fuzzies has eluded me so far. I know, nothing a little more aperture can't fix. M76 The Little Dumbbell was next. Evident at low power the best view was at 110x without any filter. Fuzzy envelope with 2 connected bright patches within. Since big brother was well portioned in the sky I swung around and found M27. Compared to my last visit in late spring the Dumbbell nebula showed much more intricacy and detail. Taking observation notes seems to have helped my seeing skills. Sticking with the nebula theme I visited the Veil ( a must object for me any darkish night and the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293). I read somewhere this month to use an OIII filter on the helix and that made a big difference from my last look. I could see something going on in the interior (can't say I saw a helix though) and 4 foreground stars framed the edges nicely. A failed attempt at IC 5146 sent me to break down everything but the scope and eyepieces while I waited for Orion to climb as high in the sky as possible. I've read the reports and seen the pictures, but they were nothing to my first in person look at M42. 3-D cloud wow wow wow. The seeing sucked that low in the sky by then (10:30) so I just teased myself for 3-4 minutes. Saving a thorough examination until next time. I like to have things to look forward to!