San Lorenzo Park in King City, 21-22 April

by Jamie Dillon

Troop 60 went rockclimbing at the Pinnacles last weekend, and we camped in this county park on the north end of King City. Pretty spot, lots of woods and birds. I took Felix along just on spec, with rain forecasted. Miraculously, though each day was thoroughly overcast, after sunset there were the stars.

Felix is my Celestron 11" Dobs, made by Discovery Telescopes. Used the good eyepieces, knowing these kids and how they weren't likely to paw the lenses. They didn't paw. We had a big ole time. Boys and adults were all thrilled at Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. They liked looking at Sirius at 126x, at M42, Cor Caroli and 24 Comae (snazzy colors as usual). Looking at M51, to me both cores were bright and obvious, and the arms of M51 were visible to direct vision. To several folks, those cores were hard to spot.

However, my ole buddy Andrew McCann, Liam's best friend and a veteran of our Peak trip several years back, stuck around and got some clear views of M104. We had a fancy Sombrero from King City. So the galaxies didn't go to waste. In all it was so worth hauling the scope; got a couple hours of observing in both nights before the clouds rolled back in.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 25, 2006 15:40:49 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 May 02, 2006 20:07:23 PT

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