May in Northern California comes around for some thirty-one days each year. (Using the knuckles on my left hand, I just made sure the month doesn't actually have 30...) Of those 31, the Moon manages to grace the Night Sky with her excessively luminous presence for about 12 days. Despite the absence of lunar floodlighting, there's no guarantee the remaining 19 days will be ideal for telescopic observation. And there's no guarantee that any particular night will prove conveniently scheduled for getting out and about...

On any given night in May, I have the luxury of just stepping outside in Backyard Boulder Creek and sweeping the sky with my own God-given 1x7mm binoculars. In fact, I do manage to step out most such evenings, but rarely do I hang out and wait the ten or twenty minutes needed for my 1x7's to "cool down" (read this as 'dark adapt'). When I do step out, there's always one bright star or another that has drifted considerably since its last viewing. After scratching my head in puzzlement, I might think to myself, "Why I never realized just how bright Arcturus really is!"

I do have a set of larger binoculars - a "pair' of 12x50's. (Why do we call a single binocular, binoculars? And why do we call them a 'pair' when you can hold the thing up with one hand?) In fact, those binoculars have been pressed to some considerable service. (I walked my last Messier Marathon with them prompting the following joke: "I only found seventy-five Messiers in my last marathon."

Of course, readers of Astro.Geekjoy also know that I don't have to use binoculars to get both eyes in on the observing. I also have a binoviewer which, when mounted on a specially modified ST80 Pup achromat, gives views of the heavens the equal to what Messier himself might have seen when re/discovering/verifying many of the deep sky studies in his 'Catalog of Star Clusters and Nebulae".

But this last May night, while the galaxies of late spring gave way to the globular clusters of early summer, I wasn't out observing from Backyard Boulder Creek. Nor was I even at the eyepiece of one of my own instruments. For while the Pup, Vicki and Argo slumbered in respective cases within the study, I was wending my way up to the Bonny Doon Ridge to observe with obsbudsman El Marko who just happens to have the one instrument that would satisfy my observing apetite for a life-time - a TEC 140mm F7 apochromatic refractor...

Some of my readers recall that I 'dreamed' this very scope into existence some 5 or 6 years ago. At star parties, I'd had the pleasure of observing through a wide variety of instruments - including 6" AP apos. My sense of such an instrument was that it was far too bulky for casual observing. Meanwhile, I'd also determined that any F7 instrument gives the broadest possible range of low and high power views in exit pupil ranges from .35 to 7 mms. (On a TEC 140 that's 20 to 400x using 50mm two inch through 5mm barlowed 1.25" eyepieces...)

Then, of course, there's the fact that a refractor gathers more light than any other instrument archetecture (A five inch refractor gathers as much light as a 6 inch Newtonian or a 7 inch catadioptric.) Finally, such an instrument, if fully color corrected (apochromatic) and finely figured (diffraction limited plus) will pack the ultimate of photonage into the tiny airy disks of stars and give the greatest contrast between faint surface detail on the planets.

Simply said, any quality 140mm F7 apochromat has a lot going for it. Enough aperture to go deep, enough resolution to take advantage of decent seeing stability, small enough to be easily mounted, inexpensive enough to make it possible to buy without that rich aunt having to die and leave you the bulk of her life-long accumulated wealth...

And the TEC 140 is a fine example of an F7 140mm apo...

After arriving at El Marko's special observing preserve, the two of us spent the next half-hour pulling scope and mount together, then another half hour doing a six point DSC alignment. Vega, Arcturus, Spica, Regulus, Denebola, and Benetnasch behind us, a dance of the fingers across the control unit and voila - we spent the rest of the evening star-hopping - oh well, El Marko, better luck next time! (The fault really was mine, I'd been slewing the scope too quickly from star to star during the six-star alignment and the encoders couldn't keep up.)

To be accurate, even before the six-star alignment, I'd already established the mood for the evening by manually tracking down Bode's galaxies and a few companions in the hinterlands north of the Bear's nose. The views of 81/82 clearly surpassed those thrown up by 150mm MCT Argo under similar (5.5 ULM) conditions. This was confirmed when I was able to resolve the tiny starlike nucleus of nearby NGC3077 and take in the large diaphanous bulk of more distant NGC2976 (both 10 inch optimal studies according to the Astro.Geekjoy Deep Sky Atlas - a plug this!).

After the abortive alignment, we went after M51 - Great view of this large sprawling face on spiral - but no sign of the NGC companion... OOPS! M101. Off to the real M51 - wow spiral arms. (Yes, I've seen them in 150mm Argo but under 6.0 skies - not 5.5). Then the perfect challenge, that large, faint globular cluster southeast of M53 in Coma Berenices - NGC5053 - a twelve-inch optimal cluster only just barely detectable through Argo on the very best Backyard Boulder Creek nights. Fabulous! EZ catch at low power through the 140.

Off to another, brighter, but equally large glob in Bootes - NGC5466 - a ten inch optimal glob. What? I could actually resolve about a dozen 14.5+ magnitude members on eye movement - extraordinary.

On to M13, 5. Each gave near 8 inch SCT resolution views. (M13 neighboring 10" optimal galaxy - NGC 6207 - was a fine scratch of near edge on light at low power.)

And what of the planets? Early in the evening we'd looked up Saturn at 150x. Despite a low angle of ring presentation and wobbly skies, Cassini gave a fine mechanical pencil line view proximate to the ansae. Variations in the frontier along the South Equatorial Belt were also apparent - very nice.

Jupiter, low near Antares, and despite quite a bit of irradiation, showed a resolved transit shadow (Europa's?) and considerable variation along the Equatorial belts - plus the Equatorial belt bisecting them. (The unobstructed scope made the belts look significantly denser than they appear through Argo...) Yes, gas giant fans, this scope delivers - despite the fact that both planets are disadvantaged by sky position.

Finished up with a view of Double Double, M57, M56, Albireo and Rasalgethi. At 150x, the Double-D cleanly resolved with those two faint intervening 12th magnitude comes easily held direct. The Ring was superb with hints of "red-wraithing" along the other frontier. Meanwhile, the 13.1 magnitude star east of the Ring could easily be held direct. M56 gave the kind of view I only get through Argo under 6.0 skies. Albireo revealed itself in all its jewel-like glory. Rasalgethi revealed that fine tight yellow/orange primary and blue secondary.

Then there was that more terrestrial doubling between a shrieking rodent and the local cat - eerie...

May is expected to stick around in Northern California (and elsewhere) for another 21 days and nights. As the galaxies of spring give way to the clusters of summer, and temperatures warm, it makes sense to get out while the getting out is good.

And if you're really lucky, you'll also be at the eyepiece of an F7 140mm dreamscope like the TEC 140mm apochromatic refractor...

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