After an absence of several months, I returned to Henry Coe State Park with scope in hand. My observing project is to complete the Messier List, and my objective for tonight was to work on some of the prime summer sky. To prepare for the session, I spent a few minutes browsing through Dickinson's Nightwatch maps (Third Edition) and settled on Chart 8, encompassing Scorpius and Sagittarius and what seemed a swarm of clusters.  Later, if time permitted, I'd see what local conditions were like and pick a dark patch of sky to explore.

Conditions seemed mediocre to begin with. Temperatures, with a modest wind, must have reached down into the 50's, but the wind died down as the night progressed.

When I arrived at 7:35, about 10 minutes before sunset, the lot was already fairly full. There must have been 20 or 25 scopes already up and waiting for photons. I was in close proximity to Jamie Dillon and Doug Davis.

A number of us caught early views of Venus boiling near the horizon, in the muck of the western sky glow.

For the sake of simplicity, I pulled only two eyepieces out of the chest, to work with my Tele Vue 101 refractor: a 35mm Panoptic for wide-field views of 4.1 degrees at 15x, and a 7mm Nagler for 1 degree views at 77x. I would use these two eyepieces exclusively for the night.

M7: Open cluster in Scorpius. Easy to locate in the Panoptic. Aiming the scope halfway between the tip of the Teapot asterism and Shaula. Saw a nice arc of at least 5 stars outlined by a box of 4 stars.

M6: A reasonably easy catch. Much smaller than M7. Showed a stand-out parallelogram of stars.

M4: Globular cluster just off Antares. Faint but definite puff, with a brighter core.

M80: Took a bit of tube-tapping to locate. Suspected it in the 35 Pan, was definite in 7 Nagler, though still very small. Bright center, though it quickly fades. Just a bit grainy.

M19: Very similar to M80 in 7 Nagler, except perhaps it's a bit less compact. Elongated? Can't be sure.

M62: Hardly detectable. Hard to star-hop to it using just the charts in Nightwatch. Not a lot of character in the 7 Nagler. Certainly detectable, though, and round. Seemed small, but diffuse.

M9: I'm getting better at picking out faint fuzzies in the 35 Pan. In 7 Nagler, fuzz seemed almost triangular. Transparency is pretty bad. The importance of scope jiggle in detecting faint objects like this cannot be overstated.

M69: Moved into the teapot. I've just also learned, with my eyes, the difference between globular clusters of magnitude 7 and 8. With 7's, they're within the grasp of the 35 Panoptic, but with a magnitude 8 clusters like M19, I had only the barest possible suspicion.

M70: Switched back to 35 Panoptic and located this very quickly on the heels of M69. Averted vision really helps with this one. Stars are all around this object. Brightish pinpoint (or maybe just a bit larger than that).

M54: Could not locate this in the Panoptic 35. Scanned with the 7 Nagler and located it in a desolate region. Faint fuzzy indeed - sheesh. Core more concentrated than other globs, and brightness falls off particularly quickly.

M22: ! Amazing. Sprawling and large. Very patchy with some "nodes".

M28: Focused, tight. Off top of teapot. Clear in 7 Nagler.

M8: Lagoon Nebula. Easy. Cluster on one side, thick wisps on the other. Central dark tendrils. Nice.

M20: Trifid Nebula. Fuzzy around the stars. Seemed long toward the bottom of the eyepiece. Very faint wisps.

M21: Open cluster. Gathered into a node. Shares the same field of view with M20 in the 7 Nagler. Topmost stars seem to make an arc.

M23: In 7 Nagler, it really dominates the field. It's like a bunch of Christmas tree light strands. Very beautiful.

M16: Eagle Nebula. Very faint - hardly detectable whisps around some of the stars. Looks like a ghostly boomerang.

M17: Swan Nebula. Body of swan obvious. Neck and head less apparent, and faint. Much more definite than Eagle.

This region is moving into the Morgan Hill/Hollister sky glow. Scorpius has just about set, and the teapot is just about useless.

M52: Between Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Looks like a clover in the 7 Nagler. Has structured appearance. Very faint and fuzzy in 35 Panoptic.

NGC 663: More noticeable than M103, which I was unable to locate.

Double Cluster (NGC 869 and 884): ! Spectacular in 35 Panoptic.

Saturn: Planet is casting a slight shadow on rings, it seems. Rings are in foreground on top, and in background on bottom.

Gamma Andromeda: ! Gorgeous yellow and blue double.

Jupiter: It's up! 4 moons, 1 very distant on lower side, 3 closer together on upper side.

Packed up and headed home. A nice, full observing session!