At Del Valle last night, Paul Sterngold and I took advantage of the first better-than-average night in a long time. We started off with some grand views of the favorite globular clusters M3, M5 and M13, which fairly exploded from the eyepieces as dazzling cosmic pyrotechnic displays. Despite the glow from a small bit of mositure and the cities on the horizon (Paul estimated the limiting magnitude as about 5.6, although I was barely able to see M13 naked eye), we were able to see a number of pretty faint galaxies including some with very interesting pairings and other associations. We also were able to see the "Big 3" supernovae once again, including the Ursa Major supernovae SN1998S (greatly diminished in brightness but still barely "there" with direct vision in the 18") and SN1998aq (still quite bright) as well as the "new" SN1998bu in M96 (Leo), a true beacon across intergalactic space - it was very bright. I mislaid my coordinates for the Corvus SN, so we once again missed that one (next weekend for sure!).

Paul had brought along his improved blue-tube/box Coulter Odyssey 13.1" dob, which he has turned into a really fine and wonderfully portable deep-sky machine. The innovations are truly impressive, and he has remade a somewhat clumsy scope into a smoothly-operating and easily manageable instrument. The whole scope is lighter, the components more manageable, the operation smoother, the setup and breakdown in dark conditions more easily accomplished. It appears as though his innovations could be adapted easily for most any size of closed-tube dobsonian scope. There are so many good ideas here that, rather than try to describe them in detail, I strongly suggest taking a good look at his fine work next time he brings it out in public.

With the 18" I turned toward M57 around 11:30PM to see how it was getting along. At about 461 diameters, and thanks to pretty good seeing, with averted vision I believe I could see the central star as a tiny pinprick of light. After noting that it seemed to come and go, Paul took a look and seemed to suspect that it was there as well, although not easily. We finished off the evening by cruising around the up-and-coming summer Milky Way...the old favorites (the Crescent, Veil, Lagoon, Trifid and Omega/Swan Nebulae) looked much brighter and more detailed than they ever did in my old 8" (no surprise there, right?) and it made me look forward to getting to the *dark* skies of Lassen Volcanic National Park in July :-)