The weekend of May 15, 1998, proved frustrating for observers at Fremont Peak State Park, near San Juan Bautista, California, as fog limited viewing on Friday and Saturday evenings. Improving weather Sunday, however, prompted me to load my Meade 127 ED 5-inch f/9 refractor and set out for the peak. The night remained clear, though there was a bit of dew and the seeing was not perfect.

My first target was the supernova in M96, SN1998bu. After forgetting which Leo galaxy was which and looking hard at M95 for much too long, I finally found it, bright and obvious at 92x.

For the rest of the evening, I alternated between Messier objects -- I am working on a Messier survey with this telescope, as usual -- and interesting double stars. M13 was granular at 92x, and showed many stars at 228x. I noticed NGC 6207 nearby at 92x. M5 was granular at 57x, and similarly resolved at 228x. I did not try high magnification on any other globulars that evening, but M4, M10, M12, M14, and M92 were all granular at 57x, whereas M80, M107, M9, M19, and M62 were not. I observed the latter three very close to the horizon. I logged M6 at 57x, viewing through tree branches -- an interesting and unusual view.

I had looked at M104 with this instrument previously, but took time for another glance when it was on the meridian. At 57x, the galaxy was a wonderful sight, showing a star-like nuclear condensation, lens, and prominent dark lane, with portions of the galaxy clearly visible on both sides of the lane. M57 showed its tiny doughnut hole at 57x, as well.

I examined five double stars at 228x. Epsilon Boo, gamma Vir, nu Sco, and epsilon Lyr were all well-resolved, with each of the latter two showing all four stars. Zeta Boo was clearly elongated, and in infrequent moments of very steady seeing was notched. Zeta has been closing recently, it was challenging -- but resolved -- with several excellent six-inch telescopes last month.

A fellow observer had a 14.5-inch StarMaster Dobson -- a quite nice-looking telescope. Through it at 110x I had a pleasant view of three galaxies in the same field in the hindquarters of Leo; namely NGC 3605, 3607, and 3608.

All in all, it was a nice night. Maybe El Nino will leave us alone for a while now.