by Rich Neuschaefer
We had a good sized crowd, lots of interesting telescopes and binoculars. The sky was clear but no fog in the valley so the sky was relatively bright. No dew, just a light breeze. The seeing was pretty good. Jupiter was showing the GRS and several bands. I didn't try more than 210x.
While I didn't try more than 210x on Jupiter, I did find more power useful on a few close doubles. I was using about 420x to view Porrima (Gamma Virginis). It was a clean split in my AP 155mm f/7 refractor. I'm sorry, I'm very bad with names, but a fellow TAC person with was splitting Porrima in a figure "8" or snowman with a Takahashi FS-102 (4" f/8) fluorite doublet APO refractor at... 865x. More than 200x per inch and the image of the double was holding up nicely. I remember this same FS-102 was showing very nice detail on Mars early last June.
The seeing was good enough to let me split Antares. It's little blue, some say green, companion was easy to see at 310x. Another double, Iota Leonis, was also easy to see at 310x.
Even with the lights from Gilroy we could see Omega Centauri. I wasn't seeing individual stars in the big glob. The comet was interesting. I guess the tail is blowing mostly away from us. There is a large glow all around the nucleus.