by Jay Reynolds Freeman
I wonder where everybody went. Amateur astronomers in the southern San Francisco Bay area had been planning a Messier Marathon for Saturday, March 28, 1998, for months, but I went to the two major sites, and did a lot of observing, without seeing so much as another person, much less another telescope.
The day began fairly clear in Palo Alto, but weather reports revealed thunderstorms around the Bay -- one location had marble-sized hail. I got up and going to drive over and catch the last hour or two of the parking-lot sale at the Orion warehouse in Watsonville. There were some interesting bargains -- they still had four OTAs for Vixen 90 mm fluorites left at the end of the sale, which astonished me, as the price was about what a new Takahashi 78 runs, and the Vixens are 12 mm larger and outstanding optically. I would have bought one, but I already have one! I did pick up some odds and ends, as well as some interesting rumors.
I visited with friends in Santa Cruz for a while, then had to make up my mind about observing. There was some weather to the north, but the coastal plain from Santa Cruz to Monterey was clearing, so I headed for Fremont Peak. I arrived at the end of twilight, but clouds encroached on the peak, and after a while I realized that they were not moving -- upslope winds were creating a broken cloud cap well above the Peak itself. Usually, when that happens, the clouds embed the top of the ridge, but not this time. There were also occasional lightning flashes from the south, but the storm was too far off to hear thunder.
Somewhat before 9 PM I left, and drove to the other planned Messier Marathon site, the outer parking lot of Henry Coe State Park, northeast of Morgan Hill, California. There was a long row of cars in the lot, but nobody was in sight -- it must have been the jumping off point for a hike or something. The ground was wet, but the sky was clear, so I set up the Meade 127 ED refractor that I had brought with me. I acquired this instrument last autumn, but with weather and all, I had only set it up three times before. Seeing and transparency were not particularly good, so I did not do a complete polar alignment or attach the drive controller and battery. I just roughly aligned the mount and pushed the telescope around by hand, loafing at 57x.
That is a fine magnification for Messier objects: I logged 40 of them in less than an hour's observing. M97 showed the eyes, the Sombrero showed the dust lane and central bulge, M44, M67 and M40 were resolved, and a couple of globulars were granular and would likely have resolved with more magnification. The telescope was capable of going well beyond the Messier catalog, even in such less-than-perfect sky: In Virgo, I was able to see NGC 4387 and 4388, tucked in below M84 and M86.
The night was calm and quiet, except for a chorus of coyotes singing cheerily in the distance. Soon I noticed more lightning flashes to the west -- the first time I have logged electrical discharge as a significant contribution to light pollution -- and the encroach of more clouds made me suspect a storm was on the way, so I took down my telescope and left by midnight. Yet the rain held off, so perhaps I should have stayed.