by Jay Reynolds Freeman
I took a look at the masses of cloud over the Diablo Range and continued on to Fremont Peak, only to find windswept cloud building over the south and west slopes as the sun set. Shortly thereafter, layers of cold, wet stuff began to encroach on the southwest lot. Two of the four telescopists present bailed out, leaving me with Harvey and a newcomer to the hobby with a C-8. Wet stuff notwithstanding, I set up, because I had a feeling the tops would drop with the end of the evening sea breeze, and what do you know? I was right! By 8:15 PDT the fog had settled below the peak, and shortly thereafter it completely dissipated.
The night that ensued was cold and none too dark, thanks to the Salinas auto dealers, but the sky remained mostly clear. A band of high cirrus drifted overhead between 11 PM and midnight, but otherwise, things were fine until about 2 AM, when more wisps of cirrus encroached. These were intermittent enough not to do more than slow down observing; a few minutes staring at any object would see a break passing by, so that it could be viewed in transparent sky.
Relative humidity peaked at 100 percent with the early evening fog, but declined erratically thereafter, ending up at about 70 percent in the small hours of the morn. Temperature dropped to 9 or 10 C. Seeing was so-so -- I was limited to about 250x on Jupiter, and the most that was useful on Saturn was a bit more.
Notwithstanding all the qualifiers, I logged well over 100 objects. I have no idea how Coe turned out, or whether anyone went there, but it appeared clear as I drove homeward at 4 AM.