by Jay Reynolds Freeman
About half a dozen observers set up in the Montebello main parking lot on the evening of June 21. Weather was deliciously warm, calm, and clear, with low humidity and high transparency. Lack of marine layer over the Bay shore contributed to a relatively bright sky.
I had decided to start early on my Lassen target list, so I brought Harvey, my Celestron 14. I spent an hour or a little more, after mid twilight working an area within four degrees south and east of M83, looking at odds and ends of galaxies and a couple of Abell clusters. I found everything on my list in that area -- the transparency was truly great -- though the Abell clusters would probably have showed more members in darker sky. I used 98x for most of this work, switching to 244x occasionally when objects were very faint or lay close together. Then I reviewed summertime Messier objects for a while, and closed by splitting Antares at 244x. It was more often not split than split, but several times I saw the small, greenish-looking companion clearly.
I only had a few brief glances through one other telescope, a 7-inch Dobson that was equipped with a late-model eyepiece grating spectroscope -- a loaner from the SJAA. Lines in Albireo (both components), Vega, Antares, and Altair were easy to see, and differed from star to star.
I took down as the sky brightened with the approach of the Moon, and drove out with Luna just peeping over the top of the hill.