by Jane Houston Jones
We had a nice gathering at Lake Sonoma last night. Up on the high spot we had 14 telescopes: Stuart and Susan had their Stellevue 80mm refractor, Norm and Linda had two Nextstars, and 8 and 11 incher. Bob Berta had one too. Kenwood Karen had some great mounted binos. Next was an SCT run by ..uhh ohh, I blanked out on his name! Then, Mike Portuesi and Jim Mace had a homemade 10-inch f/7, an 8 inch LX200, and a brand new burgungy 102mm StarMax Orion Mak they picked up at the Orion Astronomy Day sale. It's name is meatloaf. They were busy with the Virgo Messiers, continuing where we stopped last month, at Virgo. They were using the 1994 Alan MacRobert Starhopping guide from Sky and Telescope. Next came Craig Lambert with his great 8-inch Mak-newt - just awesome views in that scope, Craig! Mojo and I with 14.5 f/4.8 and 17.5 f4.5 Litebox reflectors. Bob Naeye had his 12.5 Portaball and Lorrie Boen was mooching so she didn't set up her ETX. The Portaball, fresh from a mirror bath in the Houston-Jones bathtub recently, was well collimated and was giving real nice views, too. And last but not least in our telescope row was Ed Greenberg with his 8 inch Skyquest XT8 on a Tom Osypowski equatorial platform.
Down in dob hollow were 4 or more telescopes: Steve Gottlieb and Robert Leyland with a pair of 17.5 inchers, and Dave Silva, who I had known and never met in person before was there, but I never saw what telescope he had. And Duane drove up as I was returning to my telescope, so I never saw what equipment he had. There may have been others who arrived after I did my twilight social stroll around the area. A nice collection of nice people at Lone Rock Flat last night That's at least 19 telescopes! And a very nice variety of cookies.
I am sure I left someone out, by name or equipment. After dark I stayed put, except to say goodbye to Robert Leyland at 2:00 a.m.and check his opinion of our seeing and transparency to see if we were close in our assessment. The Comet IZ, popular target for the kids to aim at through their little 6 inchers Friday night at the Young Astronomers Star party was just as popular with the big kids at Lake Sonoma last night. I could see a tail spanning three degrees using my 17.5 incher and 31 Nagler. 9 Galaxy Virgo view with the 31 Nagler was popular too.
And I showed Leo 1 to several who could see it and several who could not.
The observers came from San Jose, Pleasanton, Daly City and San Francisco. Several other came from other parts of the wast bay. Then there were a couple from Sonoma and half a dozen from Marin. It is worth the drive! We were the last car out at 3:00 a.m., following a caravan of late night observers and saw the pretty third quarter moon rising on our 70 mile drive home. I know there was another group of observers at the SCAS club site east of US 101 near the Geysers, too, among other places. Lotta looking up last night.
We're heading up again tonight, clear sky clock permitting. It was spot on for Saturday night, showing the transparency improvement after midnight.