by James Turley
Hey Steve. No problem. I felt like that up at MB last week. You didn't tell us how bad it was.
My first trip to Pacheco. I too went to the Lake, but turned around because I'm too cheap to pay the $2. Found everyone at Whiskey Hill Horse poop corrals. Wet and Cold. But sky was nice for awhile. Lots of moisture. Low 32, Humidity hit 93%. Had frost on my DeepSky Map. Wind dead calm. Denny brought his Kerosene heater. Everyone packed up about 1130, when the clouds stole the view and the temp was at freezing.
Very few meteors. No Leonids.
A good night, but I fought dew all night. Blew out a fuse. My eyeglasses fogged up. Kendrick on full bore. Ep's dewing. Later, gave up and mooched views with just a few wee sips of 1 Year Old Raunch Bourbon left over from last year's ski season.
Planets real steady. Pumped up my 114 ED light thimble to 800x with a TV 4x Mega 2" Barlow and 3mm Radian on Jupiter. (3mm/4 = .75mm). So stupid, but it held. That's 4x Daws' limit. Felt like a Tasco FirstScope. 3mm Unbarlowed and more seriously, Rich noted some fine detail and a festoon or two. GRS was hiding. Missed the Callistro transit.
First light on my unmounted Garage sale C8. Some really nice views of the Horse Trough tanks, mounted on Rich's shoulder. The 12mm Chinese Kelner EP performed well, showing fine detail of the green moss floating on the water.
Jay had checked off 70 Galaxies by 10pm. Wagner started off showing us Mimi's Red Star. Rich plopped down his Stowaway Bird scope :-) He never did haul out any of his other treasures. Rashasd was BBQing something. My neighbor was imaging the air traffic. A Redwood city Taco brought us bags of bagels and sweet rolls from his coffee brewing cafe. Thanks!
Auriga was well placed, so I spent some time there with Mark looking at some NGC OC's inside. M1 for once looked real good in my scope. I really was never able to get a good view of that by myself.
About 10 observers.
Albert, sorry we missed you. Was it wet down at the lake? Did you see Ed?