First, the valley. I have a special little starplace hidden among the towering and magnificent redwoods in West Marin. It's in Lagunitas, out behind the funky Swing Cafe. It's my Friday night place. It's quite dark, better than Mount Tamalpais, and has a nice southern skyview. I also like it because its windless and quiet. And only 20 miles from my home. Usually there are just a couple of us who usually set up two scopes each. This past Friday, August 14th , I invited a few fellow volunteers from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's (ASP) Project Astro program to join Steve Overholt and me splashing between the little lakes of Lagunitas, and the starfields of the summer Milky Way. My guests and I were attending the 1998/1999 workshop for new teacher astronomer teams.

I didn't think anyone would have the energy to observe after a full and intensive day of teacher/astronomer bonding and twirling ourselves and styrofoam moonballs on sticks to demonstrate the lunar phases. But no, was I wrong! I had several takers to my invitation. We wiped the play-doh off our hands - ah, that brings back childhood memories!, used to make and model and measure the size and distances between earth and moon, sun and earth, and headed up the highway, over the Golden Gate Bridge, way out west. Former TAC guy from up Carmichal way, Matt Tarlach signed up for Project Astro with a teacher from Horace Mann Middle School in San Francisco. Way to go, Matt! I told him he could use my LITEBOX 12.5 reflector if he wanted to! He really likes that scope! Matt brought some big Orion binos, and a really comfy chair he found at Target. Steve Godwin, a fellow SFAA member (although he confided that he only joined so he could borrow one of the club scopes!), lives right down the road from Lagunitas, so he was really happy to discover our great place. I invited all the North Bay TAC members and Evan Garber took up the challenge, bringing his 10 inch LX200. He disarmed the "goto" button and enjoyed some starhopping. I think a couple other north TAC members might have tried it out Saturday. Maybe they'll post an observing report if they did. Hint Hint

We had to be up bright and early for day two of Project Astro Saturday morning, so I bid my guests farewell. They were smart and left. Not me! I logged another couple hours and the Herschels in Bootes, Delphinus (again), Draco (interesting that my first Herschel hunt in Draco was at this spot in August of last year!). I also hunted and captured the H out of Aquila and Aquarius. That made a quarry of 14 new Herschels for my current project. Rough sketched Jupiter, packed up and 25 minutes later I was home. We did see a fantastic something at 10:32 PM travelling north northeast thru Delphinus, and on past Cygnus. An orange yellow streak. We assumed it was a meteor except we all observed it pause for a few seconds, and then brighten, speed up and continue northeast. Any ideas?

Then, the Peak! I stopped to view the earthquake damage to Highway 101 near Betabel Road on my way from Redwood City after our workshop ended on Saturday August 15th. I just love earthquakes, and couldn't resist finding fault. Soon, I was climbing up and up into the fog, and it wasn't too long till I pulled in next to the observatory. Mojo needn't have worried about saving me a spot. It was deserted! The snowy blanket of fog below was so breathlessly beautiful. It almost guaranteed a spectactular night. And spectacular it was! This was my first, but certainly not my last time to set up right in front of the observatory. I met Ranger Mike, and gave him two tours of the night sky, before he called it quits! Fighting the light with all our might for the right to the night! That could have been the title of the great talk and slide show Mojo gave on light pollution a few hours later, and the battle cry of IDA. Until then, we occupied and entertained ourselves with the little C5 solar filtered tabletop scope Mojo found in the observatory. What a treat! Sunny Deee-lite! Through a myriad of eyepieces, we went to higher and higher magnification. Those sunspots grew larger and larger, showing more detail at every step up in power. I have been tracking them all week, and was glad not to have missed a day. I spotted 5 groups, and a total of 21 spots. I know there were more, but I was just enjoying the beauty of it all. They are beautiful, just beautiful! I was busy sketching views of the spots thru the 18mm Kellner eyepiece, when I heard some familiar voices. I had invited some friends, and they arrived in time to see the last of the sun thru the little scope that could. I introduced SFAA Prez Al Stern, Morrison Planetarium staffer Kirsten VanStone, and SF State new grad and new project astro astronomer Alice to Mojo. Then we left him for a little while, to his slide show prep, and wandered over to see Coulter Row and the SW parking lot. We walked around, talked to a few of the group, checked out the nice array of scopes and then we turned our gaze westward, and watched breathlessly as the sun set. We vowed to return, but broke that vow as we were having so much fun with the public program we just couldn't tear ourselves away. It was a special treat for me to share the night with some great people. And almost as special was finding all of our favorite objects (including the planets Uranus, Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn and the moon) in my scopes, and of course thru the 30 inch Challenger.

When the moon rose, I wanted just one little quick look thru Rich's refractor, but after the grueling hike over to the SW parking lot at 3:00 am or some equally really late hour, risking life and ankles, awakening fierce animals, I got to watch, instead, the packing up of that instrument. Luckily Rashad was acting like the energizer bunny, pumping out object after object thru the mighty blue stickerscope. At least my desire to see Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon were sated. Then Mark gave me a lunar quiz. Wazzat? Copernicus! (He really knew all along!) Back I went, refractor view deprived. Mighty Orion was horizontal above the trees. I pointed my little scope at the trapezium and counted...4...5...6. I think I even spotted 7! Or E, F and G for you purists. That was like counting sheep, and I was just a tad sleepy by then - It was about 4:30 I reckon!. It was time for a little snooze before the next hunt began a few hours later...travelling through what seemed like most of the great valley in search of...Breakfast! Coffee!!

You may have noticed that I haven't talked a lot about lists of objects observed this time. Of course what we all do is pursue those objects of our desire with our imaginations, then hold them for just a moment with our majestic and timeless time machines, or capture the sweeping grandeur with our cameras for others to see afterward. The joy of the hunt, the thrill when we succeed is indescribable, personal and emotional. But the people we are with when we are doing all that hunting and gathering is what makes amateur astronomy so special and so rewarding, at least that's the way it is with me. There was a time on Saturday night when a few of us were stretched out on the wooded picnic table top and benches in front of the observatory, just looking up at the North America nebula and the Pelican nebula, and the Milky Way. Trying to balance an Orion Ultrablock filter between my glasses and the binos for a better view, quietly gazing upwards in wonder. Seeing the Veil while practicing horizontal binocular or naked eye picnic table astronomy. Listening to the soft murmur of a few visitors looking thru my nearby scopes. The muted "wow", or "cool". A little boy's delight at the view of his favorite planet Saturn thru my 6 inch scope, after returning from his campsite nap, awed gasps while another visitor found Andromeda and it's worthy companions, and yet another who grabbed Jupiter herself in the telrad, and in the eyepiece.

Ending with a reverent and stunned silence at the sight of wispy nebulosity of the Veil Nebula thru the 30 incher - a beautiful tattered remnant of the fury of the universe. It was sharing the universe with new and old friends that made this a special night for me.