Montebello Tonight

by Rich Neuschaefer


We had high clouds early but by about 10:30pm the sky cleared for a few hours. Dew wasn't much of a problem. Phil had to use his blower to get the dew of his unprotected corrector plate, but this was near midnight.

The seeing was quite good. Phil had his Ulitma 11 SCT very well collimated. It gave detailed images of the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. When one of Jupiter's moon was about three quarters of the way across the disc of Jupiter we could easily see the white moon. Earlier we could see its shadow. The GRS was in view on the "rising" limb. Before we left the GRS was well into view. It is more colorful than last year. Saturn and the Moon also looked great in Phil's Ultima 11.

Steve C. had his new Losmandy G11 on its first night out. Very nice mount. James T. had his Vixen (Orion) 114mm ED refractor. It gave very nice images. I was using my AP 92.5mm Stowaway.

We had both human and animal visitors. All in all, a nice night out. On the way home the fog was quite thick going down Page Mill Road. I would guess it was about 1000 feet thick. There was no fog down at fwy 280.