I finally got the combination of a clear night, and time to get out to Montebello tonight. It was my 1st time there, and I was lucky to meet up with James Turley who was already aligning his refractor. When I left Belmont around 5:45 there was a yucky haze covering the eastern half of the sky, but down at Montebello there was only some thin high level clouds. I think they got thinner as time went on.
Jim lent me some nice binoculars as he was aligning, methinks I am going to get a pair, binoculars are so easy to "setup" and use. Jim, it seems like you got a good deal on those, where'd you get them? What brand/type were they?
M31 looked really good in the binoculars, the wider field of view seemed to give it some extra context to show off how big it is. Planes kept on flying across the Pleiades, I guess that is SJA's landing approach. I can imagine the tower: "Flight 765 from Phoenix, we've got you cleared for landing on runway 2, just line yourself up with the 7 sisters and come on in." I finally found M13 after I figured out I was looking on the wrong side of Hercules. It was clearly visible in the binoculars.
We tried Jim's new Brandons on the double cluster next. an excellent site as always. With the bigger brandon's I felt like I was sitting on my couch looking out the window. I can see how those are great if you are wearing glasses.
The ring nebula was a good site, as was andromeda. I think it was one of the naglers that made M32 really pop out, impossible to miss.
Jim was able to get his OIII filter into the a new eye piece after all, and we tried it on the Veil. It took as a little while, but eventually the flame showed up very clearly. Once we were sure it wasn't our delusions. Since we both had the same delusion, that seems unlikely.
As we looked at the Veil I was noticing some cloudiness towards the edge of the field of view that I think was simply diffuse gas clouds of the milky way. Anyone ever try just browsing the milky way with a filter on? I might someday.
Lastly we checked out M27, which popped out very nicely. I had to go back to work just as David Kingsley(?) started setting up. sorry about the headlights as I left, I figured out what button I had accidently hit when I got home.
Hopefully we'll get a clear night next week, and I can get out there in time to setup my own scope.
If anyone is going out there on Page Mill be real careful, there is alot of deer wandering around now, and those blind curves are nasty. I don't understand how the 4 people I had to pull over for could want to drive so fast...