Last Saturday, August 22nd, I attended my first FPOA Star-B-Que. Saturday dawned bright and sunny, but I was dazed and groggy. I had just returned a few hours earlier from a public star party at the Robert Ferguson Observatory at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County, where I provided part of the program for 60 campers the previous night. I made sure every one of the kids who wanted to, were awakened to see beautiful Saturn rise in the east and peek out from the trees. My 12.5 inch LITEBOX reflector joined a couple LX 200's and a nice red 13.1 inch Coulter outside the observatory housing the 40 incher. But that's another story.

I drove down from Marin County, car loaded to the gills with two of my telescopes, a sleeping bag for later (which was never opened), and 3 dozen additional telescopes ...telescope cookies that is, plus some gingerbread stars, nutmeg spiral galaxies and more moons than can be found in our solar system. I met my guest Robin Waleski in San Carlos, then we proceeded to Moffatt Field to pick up our special guest, Dr. Chris McKay, who was one of the 3 astronomers honored at the Star-B-Que. Our caravan complete, we waved goodby to Space Camp, and began our trek to the Star-B-Que. Robin is an observing friend of mine and an elementary school teacher and joins me on Mount Tamalpais for our monthly SFAA star parties. She brought her C-8, sandwiches and projects for the night.

We arrived at the Peak at about 2:00 PM and settled down for some lunch and relaxation. One great thing about the Star-B-Que is the opportunity to meet and talk to alot of astronomy folks in the daylight! I met Denni and Kevin Medlock, Bob Black, Rob Toebe and Pat Donnelly for the first time, plus some others who I am embarrassed to have forotton their names, and observed some work being done on the mighty 30 inch Challenger Telescope. I took some great photos of Kevin, Donn, Robert and others atop a ladder squinting down at the 30 inch primary doing a spot of collimating. I climbed up and took a look for myself. In between, we took looks at mighty sol, thru the hydrogen alpha filter on a 40mm solaris refractor. Rich Neuschaefer took out another little 55 mm F8 flourite refractor with a solar filter, and we were able to observe the sun in white light too. The sunspots in white light were magnificent. The prominences and loops and granularity were gorgeous in the solaris. I sketched, so did Pat Donnelly and maybe Ron Toebe, whose gorgeous sketches can be found in Robert Garfinkle's Starhopping book. One of my bibles, that book.

Soon more people were arriving. I wanted to set up my scope right in front of the observatory to catch the crowds on their way in or out of the observatory. Robin, Chris and I set up our scopes next to a big 16 inch Meade SCT. Rich set up his 180 mm Astro-Physics Refractor on the other side. My 12.5 incher had some serious aperture envy with all the big scopes around it, but it kicked - - -, and kept up with the bigger scopes. Akkana and David joined us with a couple scopes too. It was a nice and friendly star savvy group next to the observatory. Mojo brought some comfy chairs, strawberries and coffee, and entertained and educated some of the crowd. Down behind Ranger Mike's house, more scopes were set up, including fellow AANC director and FPOA Director Carter Roberts. It was time for the games to begin! The crowd was enjoying the burgers and hot dogs, and all the pot luck goodies. I brought vegetarian mystery tofu, cheese and tomatoes. And for later, decadent chocolate covered homemade marshmallows. I thought Jody's Texas buttermilk pie (sorry if I botched the name, Jody) was the yummiest thing I ever tasted! Must be a Texas thing - we three hail from the same corner of North Texas.

The AANC presented awards to three notable astronomers. Planetary Scientist Dr. Chris McKay, from NASA-Ames Research Center was awarded the Professional Astronomers award. If you haven't heard Chris speak to your group, book 'em Dano, and book him soon - you won't be dissappointed. It was a real treat to spend the afternoon with Chris, and a thrill to show him the majestic planets later in the evening through all those superb telescopes set up outside the observatory. A professional astronomer having a blast with all us amateurs. That was frosting on the cake, and helped make the night a special one for me.

The amateur astronomer category was awarded to my frequent observing partner up in Marin County - Steve Overholt. Steve is a tireless promoter of amateur astronomy, spending night after night outside bookstores, off or on sidewalks near grocery stores, and behind cafes, or through Utah's National Parks. He is the only person I know who will drive an hour after work, thru three locked gates, past barns, up gravel and muddy dirt (and cow pie encrusted) roads just to join me share the sky with twelve rural Nicasio schoolkids on a freezing December night. But the pay was pretty good - homemade chocolate chip cookies and hot cocoa. Anyway, I was proud to nominate him for the award, and proud that he was given this honor.

The Commercial Award was given to Tectron Telescopes owners Tom and Jeannie Clark of Sarasota Florida for their collimating tools, and the special award was given to SETI. Seth Shostak was on hand to receive the award on their behalf. Some other awards were awarded, including the excellent selection for the Astronomical Gastronomical competition. I think the judges, whoever they were had a hard but sweet time performing their tasks. Modesty prevents me from telling you who won! Hint - m&m sidebearings.

Well darkness was setting in and it was time to set up our scopes. Steve set up down by the picnic tables. His thirty inch 198 pound "Starship" and his new 17.5 inch 58 pound two truss tube scope named "the Owl" were his compainions. He had quite a crowd as he drove his little Ford Festiva into the driveway loaded with these two scopes! We'll have these two, plus my 12.5 and 6 inchers out at the Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera Sunday, August 30th, as we do every first quarter Sunday, if you'd care to see four impressive scopes pointed at the moon!

The lines at the Challenger 30 incher were long and steady until the wee hours. Some of the welcome photon moochers I got to share my scopes with were Ed Erbeck, Jack Zeiders, Denni and Kevin, Robert and Jody. Let me tell you it was an honor to have these folks look through my scopes, and we had alot of fun locating many difficult as well as easy targets. Fellow SFAA'ers Lew Epstein and family were there, Dennis Tye made all the awards for the AANC, and was up with us near the observatory. Dennis LeClert, AANC Prez was there. I spotted Terry Kahl, and lots of friendly faces. Everybody helped Robin set up her scope, even after it was set up. I saw lots of TAC folks. Rashad walked over and had a cookie as I was taking them to the judging table, and so did Jay Freeman and Doug Snyder later in the evening, and too many others to mention. Fremont Peak was jam packed with astro folks all having a great time. There were scopes all over Coulter and all over the SW lot too. It was an astro night of nights. I wish I had gone around and counted them, but I have such a hard time leaving my own scopes. This was a Star-B-Que all-star night. Weather and people made it perfect!

I can't describe all of the objects I grabbed, but I'll go over some but certainly not all of the more memorable catches of the night and morning. First was the Cat's Eye Nebula, NGC 6543. My friend Robin specifically asked me to help her to star hop to this beautiful object. We used the Herald Bobroff Astro Atlas - there were a few of these around this night, as Crazy Ed donated two of them to the raffle! Wow, what a great prize!! Ed showed me how to use the A section, specifically the planetary nebula page - duh, maybe if I had read the darn thing I would have seen that page before. I went directly to E-10 and plowed through Virgo when I got it in the spring. From the Planetary page to the B page, it was an easy star hop from Polaris and Ursa Minor to Draco to the Cat's Eye.

Robin was thrilled when she star hopped to this object! On another outing together we hopped to Neptune and Uranus on Mount Tamalpais for her first planet hop.

Another amazing object was the Saturn Nebula, NGC 7009 in Aquarius. Everyone who looked at it, at 200X and even with a 2X barlow, was thrilled with the view thru my scope. Go Strider! Yes we all saw the central star clearly, the envelope shining blue-green, saturnian in shape, ansae protruding. The Blue Snowball Planetary, NGC 7662 is nothing special, except I love to look at it, so since it is my scope, I coaxed that little beauty into my eyepiece.

I have this Herschel 400 binder. On the Aquarius page, there is an object named Baxendell's nebula. Mike Koop and I thought it would be a fun project to look for that object. We layed out the HB Atlas on the table. Hmmm. Should be right there above the Saturn Nebula. There's the stars in Aquarius we need to hop from. Hmmm. Should be right here above Sadalmelik. There's the double star Aquari 21 and 20. 15 and 16. M2's right there, again, darn. At least an hour went by while we looked and looked. Back and forth to the Atlas. We kept bumping into M2, over and over, there was that darn M2. So we finally decided that M-2 must be this object. and we gave up and hunted some other objects, that we could find, like M31 and M32.

A trip down the hill and a visit with Steve and Carter yielded a special treat for me. A young couple I had met the previous weekend when I was the single lonely scopewright outside the observatory were set up in the shadows with their tiny refractor. Paco, Elizabeth and young 9 year-old Elizabeth and some friends were frustratedly trying to work their scope. I helped them pull in Jupiter, and then we all marched up to the top of the hill for some planet purveying thru some scopes that could. Elizabeth the mom had told me last week that Elizabeth the daughter "loved astronomy because it made her feel smart". Well, when someone shares that special wonder of a child with me, I just melt into a little puddle. I invited them up as my guests to the Star-B-Que, and was disappointed not to see them in the daylight. (car trouble delayed them till dark - what troopers that they still made it!) I brought some children's astronomy books for Elizabeth-the-younger.

I sat in Mojo's comfy chair with three kids cuddled on my lap and we read about the constellations together as we looked up and found them. Later the two young girls were still sitting in the chair, with my red flashlight reading, looking up, reading, looking up.

After a while Mojo took the kids on a stellar journey to Albireo, asking the each to whisper what they saw into his ear. Then the next kid, and the next kid looked and saw what we all love about astronomy, those magnificent views that never cease to thrill and amaze us, even after thousands of viewing sessions. Topaz and turquoise jewels in this case.

By the end of the night, little Elizabeth told me she wasn't old enough to stay up till 11:00, and that her eyes were stinging. I gave her my red flashlight to keep. And two astro books. and they walked down the hill wrapped in blankets and stardust.

The most memorable views for me this night were, as usual, the planets. I sketched Jupiter with it's great pale spot rotating across the meridian. I sketched at 2:00. I sketched at 2:30, 2:51 and 3:20. At 6:05 am I was still sketching Jupiter, thru Rich's refractor. Saturn was beautiful thru all the scopes, too. Uranus and two of its moons (maybe we saw 4 moons - using wishful and averted seeing) were a treat in the 30 incher. Coyotes howled. Bats whizzed by. There was a great intermittant roar nearby. An astronomer who shall remain nameless was snoring so loud it shook the ground, and I was afraid my scope would get out of collimation. I quickly moved my little scope so it wouldn't get damaged and so we could grab rusty red Mars. Then another astronomer came lumbering out of the woods and announced, "what are you waiting for, go see Venus and Mercury"! So up the hill I hiked, crunching dry leaves under my feet. And there waiting for me were heavenly Venus and tiny Mercury, visible to the naked eye. I aimed my borrowed binoculars at them and gazed for a moment in wonder. Crunching back toward the scope camp, I finally admitted defeat. We watched until Jupiter disappeared, and blue sky appeared. It was another beautiful morning on Fremont Peak.