Great report Bruce,
I know I had a great time. It was great to meet you all, and to view the sights through the various telescopes assembled. The little ST-80 was a fun device, and the view's through your 18" were outstanding. I think we had 8 telescopes (plus your mounted binoculars) set up, one for each person :-)
Late afternoon, and early evening we had a good time looking at the sun through Colin's ETX-90 and Thousand Oaks filter. Two very prominant sunspot groups were visible, close to the opposite poles, with some prominent light ridges (flare activity?) visible near the southern spot. As the su set we could view the crescent moon, and wonder of wonders Mercury was very bright, 5 deg above the hill line (probably 7 above the true horizon). This was my first time viewing Mercury, and it was pretty neat to see the crescent phase of the planet, looking like a small moon instead.
During the night many meteors were seen, including one beautiful slow moving SCO that was at least -3 magnitude, and left a lovely ghostly train. It was slow enough that I had time to look up, from concentrating in Colin's C-11, and still see the meteor head traverse about 10 degrees of sky!
Thanks too, to Dave da Silva for the advice about the GM-8, hopefully mine will have arrived in time for the next outing!
Most of us packed up around 1:30AM, leaving Kevin to soldier on alone. (He camped overnight at the campground over the ridge).
During the drive home, it was interesting to note the light fog that covered much of the low lying areas of Sonoma county, from Healdsburg down to Rohnert Park. By Petaluma it was clear again, and continued clear further south.