by Richard Navarrete
Last night (May 4th) we had a fine turnout at Henry Coe State Park. I never counted scopes, but at a guess we may have had 20+ scopes out there. Lots of newbies, some old friends I hadn't seen in awhile, new scopes/gear, weird parking angles (what's up with that?) and lots of laughs and good observing.
The afternoon was windy, as usual, but it died down not long after sunset.
It started getting cold early so I was in thermals and a hat before the sun went down. I didn't have a thermometer, but I never added layers after the initial change, so the temps may have even warmed a bit over the course of the evening. I won't give away any of the new gear seen up there, I'll let the owners tell you about things.
I had a great time observing with my 16" dob, and hanging with my posse. I thought the seeing was quite good, although Mark Wagner thought it wasn't as good as on Friday night. The highlight of the night was the discovery, by Kevin (last name forgotten, sorry!) of comet Ikeya-Zhang! What a stunner that was! Right in the head of Draco. Big, bright and naked eye to boot.
Not a big obvious tail, at least to my eye. I'm sure others saw more detail, but I was working to finish the Herscel 400 list, and didn't want to get to distracted. More on that in another report.
Special thanks to Kevin for sending the coeds over who were working on a college astronomy project, and to Paul Mancuso who was kind enough to wait for 30 minutes before packing while I was finishing my observing.
There are lots of good folks in TAC.