Fairfax California is a sleepy town snaking towards Point Reyes and the San Andreas Fault on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It's halfway between San Quentin Prison and Tomales Bay. It's funky. It's mellow. It seems that half the populace was out strolling tonight. My kinda stargazing town! Kids and dogs, mamas and papas. It's a great place for Grocery Store Astronomy! The Bell Market was my starplace and what better place to celebrate my 100th observing session of 1998! The week or so around the first quarter moon is the time I take my telescopes out for a spin outside Marin County's bookstores, farmers markets and, for the first time tonight, grocery stores! Store clerks looked. Cars stopped on the busy road and pulled into the parking lot. My project astro teacher partner and family drove by, and stopped for a lunar lesson.

My fellow West Marin Astronomy Club member, Steve Overholt and I set up only two telescopes tonight. The Owl, a F4.1 two truss tubed 58 pound 17.5 inch reflector, and my Red Dwarf, a 6 inch F5 reflector. We left our bigger equipment at home this evening. I wasn't sure how much room there was on the sidewalk fronting the Boulevard.

Of course we observed the 11 day old moon tonight at powers ranging from 60 to 90x. It is always amazing to me that some people have never looked at the moon through a telescope! Copernicus, Kepler and Tycho were showpieces, easy for the public to see and understand. These nights when the fabulous ray craters are prominent make a good study. They whet the newbie appetite for things to come.

Schickard is one feature I like to point out on this night. Lava filled Phocylides and Nasmyth could be seen earlier tonight, but not Wargentin. Not at the market, anyway. I just now noticed that Wargentin is partially visible. Dark and high. Filled to the brim with lava.

A few repeaters from our Sunday bookstore astronomy show in another town showed up tonight. They had so much fun watching mag 5 SAO 160046 in Ophiuchus blink off at 10:45 pm. (it reappeared on the other side of the moon at 12:10 am! - yes I stayed up to watch for it!) And they were amazed at the difference a few days make on a crater like Clavius. No craterlet counting tonight! They'll be back for Cafe astronomy further west on Friday night too! They're hooked!

Back at the ranch, after a successful moon shopping spree, I took out my F7.3 10 incher on my back deck. Sketching some of these targets at 154x is a nice way to end a night of successful mooning.