Kevin Z and I had Montebello to ourselves on a pretty good night. Even the coyotes kept a respectful distance, although their spokescanid denied that this had anything to do with recent reports of cougars in the area.
It was relativeky warm, but moderately windy, especially before 10:00. Transparency was good, except at the horizons and it was dry. Seeing was mediocre to poor. It got pretty dark late, as we were leaving.
We came up to see Mercury, which showed a phase, but that's about all. I took some pictures, but I'm not expecting much.
Best sights for me were:
Omega Cen, which I found by following Kevin's advice to scan with the finder just above the tree line to the south. Actually it was obvious in the finder without even scanning. If its up it can only really be in one place. Had never seen it before from California. Got some resolution at 55x and 120x. Higher mag didn't work in the seeing. It also looked cool in 15x70 binos -- a beautiful, large, mysterious, bright glow.
NGC 3109 group in Leo, which I had never seen before. I saw three galaxies in the 9.25.
NGC 4565 in Coma, which probably needs a darker site, but the full length of it popped into sight periodically with averted vision.
NGC 3226/3227 also in Leo.
M65 and M66.
M5, to end the evening breathtakingly.
I could not see Comet Schaumasse in Gem. In other shallow sky news we did see the zodiacal light early, and a featureless Mars just before leaving at 11:30