Three intrepid observers - Vince Huang, Paul Sterngold and yours truly - spent some time at Fremont Peak Tuesday evening 12/15/1998. Upon arrival about a half hour prior to sunset, I found howling gusty winds at the southwest parking lot, not conducive to either good seeing or telescope stability, so I moved down to the Coulter Row parking lot and set up there for what little shelter it afforded. Luckily, the wind would change from gusty to modestly sustained after dark, and it never really became very cold (if it had, the wind chill would have froze us to the core), but the atmospheric stability would never truly improve. The stars, twinkling like sparklers on the Fourth of July, were lovely and yet frustrating. Still, it was a fun evening! Paul set up his "new" Meade 127 ED refractor for photos, and Vince tried out his new SkySensor toy, while I set up the relatively rock-solid 0.457m reflector.

To complete the weather picture, there were bands of high clouds coming across early on to slightly compromise transparency, and no fog at all near the surface - the lights of the towns around the 2,900-foot peak twinkled as brilliantly as the stars.

The first thing I did was say goodbye to a few favorite summer objects, including the Ring Nebula (M57), the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) and the Veil Nebula. During this process, quite a few filters were employed to sharpen the views; the O-III really helped immensely on the faint nebulae, which with the city lights shining were practically invisible with no filtration. We tried a number of manufacturers' filters on the Dumbbell with varying success - filters by Lumicon and Orion were tested against some by Meade, Celestron and Parks. The Parks narrowband filter proved to be a rather good performer, comparing quite well with the Ultrablock on M27 and giving a pleasing view. The other two, apparently of wider bandpass characteristics, gave views that varied quite a lot from the Ultrablock. The Celestron seemed to fall somewhere between narrow and wide band, a nice intermediate level, while the Meade (in 2-inch size) was obviously a very wide band filter and, to this observer's eye, weaker than the Deep-Sky from Lumicon. Based on this cursory review, I would recommend the Parks and Celestron for what they are, but I would hold back on the Meade before I tested it much further.

A quick glance at the nearly overhead M33 showed impressive structure and definition despite the poor seeing and modest light glow from the nearby towns. The view at 145x was breathtaking.

I was terribly impressed with Jay McNeil's fine article on planetary nebulae in the most recent Sky and Telescope magazine, so I took his article in hand and searched out quite a few. I started with an "old" favorite, Jones 1 in Pegasus, to try to gauge the sky; with an O-III filter, it showed its C-shape rather well but not as plainly as some other nights. Another brighter planetary nebula, NGC 1514 in Taurus (about which there has been quite a bit of discussion on sci.astro.amateur recently), showed it's faint wreath wrapped around it's brilliant central star, along with some detail within the wreath, a nice view overall. Moving on to some of McNeil's recommendations, I hit Abell 12 very near the star Mu Orionis at 290x using an O-III filter and 7mm Nagler; with Orion still rather low, this large mag. 12 PN was little more than a swimming glow in contact with the boiling star - it would be sharper and more easily seen later after rising higher in the south. Another PN found was Abell 21, the famous Medusa Nebula in Gemini, which on this turbulent night at 145x did not show much structure other than a faint hazy 3/4 ring. The best of the evening's obscure planetaries was Jones-Emberson-1, a mag. 12 PN in Lynx about 6.5 minutes in diameter, and which at 92x with an O-III filter showed a complete ring with two brighter knots on either side of center. Due to the seeing the object showed little internal striation or other structure, but it was a fine sight just the same.

I wasn't able to find several of his recommended PN's, notably Minkowski 1-7, which ought to have been easy; but the turbulence in the sky severely limited the magnification possible, and the search for these smaller nebulae will need to wait for a calmer night.

Moving on to other objects - also in Lynx, mag. 11.7 galaxy NGC 2460 and it's companion IC 2209 were seen, the NGC object being moderately faint but with a bright nucleus, and the IC object being a faint round haze in the same 92x field. In neighboring Camelopardalis, NGC 2549, an elongated almost edge-on bright galaxy (mag. 11.1) showed well with a bright nucleus, very nice.

Turning to some familiar objects - I.443 in Gemini was rather faint and formless as compared to its apparition from this location September. On the other hand, NGCs 2174 and 2175, a bright nebula and star cluster in northern Orion, was beautifully detailed using the O-III filter at 92x, with several dark lanes crossing the irregular face of the approximately 40' diameter nebula - it was the best view of this object I've had in the 18" scope.

By 10PM, the high clouds were starting to clear and many objects were yielding better views. Open Cluster M46 and the small bright planetary nebula in front of it were a lovely sight using the Deep-Sky filter, a welcome vision after a nine-month absence. M81 and M82 were especially lovely at 92x and 145x, with dust lanes becoming visible in M81 and a good deal of structure in M82. The wonderful object NGC 2359 (Thor's Helmet) and its accompanying fainter part IC.468 stood out boldly at 92x with the O-III filter, the former easily revealing the form of an ancient Greek warrior's headware from which it derives its nickname.

Views of several bright and dark nebulae concluded the evening. The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros responded well to both the Ultrablock and O-III filters at 51x, showing much detail including mottling and possibly dark Bok Globules in the brighter protion of the nebula. The same held true for views in the 80mm Shorttube refractor I had on hand, with the full extent of the Rosette's wreath easily visible at 18x - a beautiful sight. With Zeta Orionis carefully excluded from the field, the Flame Nebula in Orion shown with detail and luster using the Deep-Sky filter. The Horsehead was visible using an Ultrablock filter, even showing the backward question-mark shape against the faint emission nebula behind it. To finish off the evening, I put an Ultrablock filter on the Shorttube to look at the California Nebula, NGC 1499, in Perseus, in it's entirety. It was faint, scarcely more than a stain on the background, but its distinctive shape could be seen.