Last night, a glorious, once in a lifetime Summer sky arched evocatively over head. Today, a blank "cyber sheet" of paper sits invocatively before me. There really is no way to reconcile the two. Black of night and white of screen, lie on two extremes of a single continuum. Above me, Reality. Before me, artificiality. Somehow mere words must be called on to build a bridge betwixt and between. Since I am unworthy of the task, how much better for you, dear reader, to have simply been there and seen for yourself?

But I was not alone, and thus the night was shared - as it should be. El Marko and son Dylan had preceded me to the SCAC Bonny Doon observing site. Mark's 12.5 dobsonian was soon joined by the 80mm Pup equatorial. Large and small side by side - each master of its own night sky domain. All that was needful was to make good selection - and not expect something that could not possibly be delivered.

On the off chance that Sol would still lay above the trees upon setup, I'd brought along the solar filter. No Sun, meant no filter.

But trailing Sun lay its pale immitation - the Moon. Garbed in thin, super-stable crescent. Mare Crisium fully displayed - but not much east of that. As things darkened Dillon was the first to notice "the old moon in new moon's arms."

Venus "on the half shell" soon followed. Extremely sharp, and high enough in ascent to banish atmo-chromaticism.

And then the brightest stars: Arcturus, Vega, Spica, Regulus. Each made presence known to squinting eyes. The "Light Brigade" soon followed their charge. The sky darkened - hampered only by that all-too-slowly retiring Luna.

Early on we contented ourselves with doubles. Jack with 10 inch Orion and Mark with 12.5 Discovery Dob - each resolved the Double Double. Neither gave the fine little "four balls of light" seen through the 80mm achromat. Sorry guys, finely hewn little scopes love doubles. But then, that not too distant Ring, well placed at the foot of Heavenly Lyre was owned by the Big Boys. Again, each instrument has its place...

Turned up disparate double Izar in Bootes. Ran the Pup's magnification up to 275x. Bright yellow primary, with faint violet-grey secondary near first diffraction ring. Not bad for F5, not bad at all.

As Moon settled, skies darkened. Club secretary Dwight assisted in collimating a new-to-Andrew 300mm Meade LX-200. Both Mark and Andrew traded views of the M5 globular through their respective 12 inchers. Never too much aperture for globular clusters. Both scopes gave that "face spiral galaxy exceedingly well-resolved" sense. M5, you almost made it. baby...

From this point on, and even after Luna finally departed for points west, it was globular cluster time. All the favorites were tracked down. M3 to M2, Canes Venatici to Aquarius. Never any loss for well-resolved views. My own favorite? Well, that would be Argo's catch of M71 in the Celestial Fox. This happened late in the evening, with the cluster well overhead amidst a richly perfuse stellar field, and while also tracking down the incomparable Dumbbell planetary.

Club president Chris brought along his 16 inch Meade Dob. The big 'un made short work of M51's spiral arms. Other views of the galaxy were had through the 80mm Pup and a Sputnik-era F8 6 inch homebuilt newtonian which often graces club gatherings. The sky was truly dark and steady. The Pup easily held the 12.3 magnitude star in "the Challice of the Ring" at 80x while Argo picked out a 13.4 magnitude field star at 120. Chris' big scope finally got the dark sky it deserved.

But the M51//NGC5195 duo were not the only galaxies of the evening. A little past midnight, we shamelessly exploited Andrew's LX-200 goto capability to turn up Stephan's Quintet. The two brighter galaxies could easily be held "en flagrante delecto" while a probable third formed a tight triangle. A bit more distant, and opposing the proximating third, a fourth was suggested as a faint fuzzy core. The quintet was not complete however - despite our best imaginings of "faint 14th magnitude fuzzy cores",

Of course, by this time M31 was well positioned. Under especially dark northeastern skies, Argo revealed both dustlanes in the direction of M110. M110 itself was seen wonderfully condensed. And it did not take long to turn up both more distant Cassiopean NGC family members.

Another bonus of the deep skies was Barnard's Galaxy in Sagittarius. This 200 KLY distant dwarf could be seen as a faint, but definite elongated sheen through Argo at 52x - near the same brightish sprinkling of 10th magnitude stars of last Summer...

As fine as galaxies and globulars were, the real breathtakers were the bright nebulae along the length of the Milky Way. Lagoon, Trifid, Swan, Crescent, and Cygnus Loops all gave astonishingly fine views through scopes as small as the achromat and as large as Mark's dob.

El Marko's 12.5 augmented with OIII filter displayed a billowy Lagoon, broken by several bands of obscuration. That same scope again hinted at the subtle color-contrast between the two lobes of the Trifid. Ultrablocked at 52x, Argo suggested the full swoop of the Swan's shapely head and neck. Extended nebulosity could be seen well way from its gacile form.

At 12x, and using the Ultrablock filter, no special eye tricks were needed to capture both eastern, western, and northern veil components in a single field. Meanwhile, through 6 inch Argo, got surprisingly detailed views of both stretches of the western weil and the broad, southern extensions of the eastern component.

And as for the Crescent Nebula along Cygnus' spine... For the first time and without mistake, Argo clearly revealed that faint extension well beyond the keystone asterism. In so doing, the nebula grew three times its normal size and made a "true" name for itself.

Can't get much better than this. Can it?

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