Friday after Thanksgiving

by Jamie Dillon

Natividad is now a crossroads north and east of Salinas, by the sheriff's posse grounds where circuses set up. Before Salinas existed, Natividad was the stage stop and a wide open little town. Out of Natividad you can get on San Juan Grade Rd, that winds thru the northern skirts of the Gabilans to San Juan Bautista. Lovely road thru big hills, see some 8 houses in just over 8 miles.

Headed up this backroad last night to check out the weather on the Peak. Turned out to pay off, we got a couple solid hours of clear dark skies by 1 am. Fronts came and went, 3 or 4 of them. The seeing was better than it promised - at sunset it was breezy and the stars were twinkling nicely. But thru most of the night it was 3/5, moderate, going to 4/5, good, for stretches of minutes. Limiting magnitude was right around 6.2, and very often most of the sky was clear. Felix, the 11" Dobs, was one of two portable scopes on the Peak, along with Ron Sherrill's 16" StarMaster. Ron Dammann was in the Observatory puttering and hopefully ended up opening the dome. Peter Natscher had set up and torn down by the time I got there at 5:30. Czerwinski hung out and swapped views and was relieved on the watch by Jim Everitt.

It was a great night to watch the stars wheel. Spent a whole big chunk of time looking up naked eye. We aimed at some favorites. M33 got repeated visits. Jim had the excitement of stumbling onto M35 and its partner cluster 2158 (little only because it's a whole lot farther away). Ron showed off Saturn in his scope when it was breathtaking. Gets credit for sharing generously, the view was lovely, detailed rings and disk, 5 moons.

I learned how closely I've learned to depend on my 7x50 finder in tandem with the Telrad. Partly out of cussedness and partly because the sky was so changeable, I only put the Telrad on the scope and never pulled chairs out. With Everitt making the final find, I went looking for one new object, NGC 7008 in northern Cygnus, off of alpha Cephei. Cool planetary by a fairly bright star, oval-shaped with 5 big bright spots imbedded in it (collision points between expansion fronts?). In the OIII it popped out, looking more kite-shaped, with the one brightest internal spot showing nearest to the neighbor star. This PN was mentioned by both Navarrete and Wagner as a highlight planetary. Was tough at 57x in the 22 Pan and bright at 79x in the Koenig.

(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians with a Lumicon OIII.)

Very refreshing and tissue-restoring to be under the stars. Saw a bunch of deer and fox. The pigs only made themselves manifest after everyone else had left, a ways off scooting down the slope.