Shirtsleeves Night at MB (Tues 2003 Oct 28)

by John Welsh

What a great night at MB. Bob, thanks so much for calling in the permit and for being such a gracious host. It was my first time at MB for observing (I've hiked that area since I was a kid) and I was very pleasantly surprised. The seeing was soft early in the evening, but by the time we folded our tripods there were five stars in the Trapezium, and I'd been able to chip away a bit at that Herschel 400 list - I'm learning to love open clusters.

Warm weather prevailed all night, with a very light offshore breeze. And you're absolutely right, Bob - we're very fortunate here to have been spared the nightmarish events that are devastating the southern state. Our brush with urban fire in Oakland was a terrible reminder, but the scale of destruction in Southern California is almost unimaginable.

The opportunity to view with a variety of optics was fun. And it was a very pleasant surprise to meet Doug and Michelle and try out their wonderful image-stabilizing binocs. An electronic tripod - ain't science great? All in all, a very pleasant evening in a surprisingly good site. I'll certainly be back.

And Bob, your ears were right - it's an LX200GPS. ;-)