By golly, we did have a hole in the clouds last night! Being the laziest TACyon, I went up to the PAS site on Oakridge Road instead of south with the mob to Fremont Peak. Amazingly, it being the dark of the moon, I was the only person to show up at Oakridge.

Anyway, things looked promising. Seeing was adequate; 140X was fine, but at 230X views of Jupiter and Saturn got a little soft. Saturn, being higher, was the crisper of the two.

The plan for the evening was to go through Auriga again (having thoroughly enjoyed it last time out) and then even further down the Milky Way. However, as Auriga wasn't really up yet (there are trees at Oakridge), I went on a jaunt through Lyra, Vulpecula and Cygnus. Started at Vega, then on to the double-double. The air must have been steadier in this direction, as both pairs were extremely easy to split tonight. Encouraged, it was on to 6791, a cluster not far from eta and nu Lyrae. This one was hard to pick out from the Milky Way, being more a few stars with some fuzziness than a star-filled cluster. I'd expected better, as Burnham describes it as an 11th mag. cluster filled with several hundred faint stars. It may be I was looking too closely, as the thing is supposedly 20 arc-min in diameter; either that or it was washed out against the fairly bright sky (there was--no surprise--a lot of water vapor in the air last night).

Anyway, on to M56. Nice. Fairly decent resolution into stars around the edges, with the central core remaining a soft patch of luminescence. Drifted into Vulpecula, via Albireo (always a fine sight) at this point, finding in quick succession clusters 6815, 6800, 6823 and 6830. All these were small, not especially distinct against the Milky Way. That was especially true for 6815. (Burnham says it probably isn't a true cluster but a clot of unrelated stars in the same direction). Thence to the Dumbbell, which seemed rather fuzzier than I remembered it. Indeed, it seemed round more than dumbbell-shaped. Went and looked at the corrector plate...hmm, a tad of dew. Recheck the connections to the battery, they're fine. Yes, the dew zapper is warm. Turned the scope to point down a while and it cleared. Back up to the Dumbbell. Better. Continued west to 52-Cygni, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Veil. When I got to the star, it did seem surrounded with fuzz. But the fuzz was round, and another look at the corrector plate revealed...more dew. Bah! Falderbibble! Dern! Tried wiping it away, but it seemed to form as fast as it was removed.

Well, OK, too near the zenith seems to be out of bounds tonight. By this time Auriga was clearing the trees, though still a bit low, but I went over that way anyway. The scope did mostly clear of dew when aimed lower, but not entirely, so in effect I was running a little larger central obstruction than usual. Things were getting *really* wet. Big drops were forming on my eyepiece case, the star chart (which has been treated with silicones) was utterly limp, and you could see swirls of mist along the ground here and there.

Just to add to the frustration, the neighbors to the south were having a party and it was time for the guests to arrive. These people must never have been to this particular house before, because two full carloads (headlights blazing) drove up the PAS driveway rather than the right one. So much for dark adaptation for a while. Pointed the scope down for a bit hoping to clear it more. The Telrad by this time (even with its dew shield closed) was sopping wet and I was forced to keep the cap on the finder scope eyepiece as it clouded up almost at once if exposed.

After the brief respite to regain dark adapation, made more liveable by the fact the neighbor's dogs came over and supervised what I was doing (taking a lot of scritching on the ears for their consulting fee...), I got back to Auriga. The Telrad had now become a red-dot finder, although the dot was very large and quite fuzzy. It could still be used (at very low power) by centering what you were aiming at (bright objects only) in the red mist. So I got to M35 via beta-Aurigae and 136-Taurae. Grand disappointment. M35 was barely visible. The wetness of the atmosphere had basically extended the San Jose light dome; the Milky Way was no longer visible and the cluster was washed out except for a scattering of a few of its brighter stars. Sigh. Check the corrector plate again...dew everywhere except a thin little band out near the edges. The whole equatorial head was covered with little drops, and even as I watched, a couple of them coalesced and started off toward terra firma. That did it.

*Groan*. Not even 8:30! Skunked by the dew. Hope the folks down at Fremont Peak had better luck and drier conditions.