by Bruce Jensen
At Montebello last night, despite a variable gentle breeze, the seeing was exceptionally good for wintertime observing. Jupiter and Saturn were crisp up to 290x in my scope and a bit higher in other smaller ones, and the trapezium in Orion was textbook at times. Rigel split like the top of fresh baked bread. The transparency ranged from great through mediocre to abysmal, depending on which ribbon of cirrus happened to waft over us (the cloud patterns were strongly reminiscent of aurorae, BTW), but that's the trade-off you'd expect. Not really a night for prolonged deep-sky. In any case, when it was clear, it was wondrous.
A few people came by earlier in the evening around sundown, including one fellow who had helped restore a large telescope at a college in San Jose (anyone remember which school that was?) and a local grape grower. The fine views of the planets at dusk made them linger and talk for awhile.
A good fun crowd last night - lots of laughs and silliness to go with the great views. Thanks to Jim Feldhouse (sp?) for bringing his wonderful laser gadget that allowed me to get what may be the best collimation ever on my scope, and to Jim Turley for the trial of his Terminagler and his H-Beta filter for the Horsehead.
It was nice to see something farther away than Mt. Diablo again for a change.