by Jay Freeman
I was the only observer at Dinosaur Point on Friday evening, 11 May, 2001. Bands of cirrus blew rapidly across the sky, covering almost half at times, but they were moving fast and generally offered large clear areas. I had my Vixen 70 mm on the NexStar 8 computer-controlled mount, and was working on a Herschel-400 survey, so had plenty to look at no matter where the holes were, and could find it in a hurry.
The wind at sunset was enough to have bothered a large Dobson; it increased as the night wore on, and by midnight was surely sufficient to make an Obsession weathervane, and perhaps to tip it over. In the lee of my car, at magnifications not exceeding 70x, I had no problem. The wind direction varied from north through west. I did not check humidity or temperature, but there was no dew on anything, and despite the wind, I was comfortable with only one light layer over street clothing.
With 80-odd objects logged, I took down at Moon rise. Weather on the way back was interesting. Despite the strong wind and the thick fog layer visible earlier in the day, on satellite images, over the coastal plain near Watsonville, there was not a trace of fog at the setup area at any time that evening, nor was any visible on the ridge lines or in the direction of the highway. However, driving back up the access road, I drove into the bottom of a fog layer approximately passing the turn-in to the "horse" area of Pacheco State Park. The sky was obscured and wisps of fog billowed past my windshield as I drove. There was occasional wispy fog descending down 152 toward Casa de Fruta, and I did not see any breaks in the overcast anywhere during the drive home.