Observing Report - Icehouse Observing Plateau (Sierra foothills,California)

I arrived at IHOP at about 5:45 and found Gene Kahn already there (he
arrived Friday night). I set up, tightened everything up, collimated,
and had dinner. By 8:30 or so, there were nine observers including two
imagers.

Equipment:
22" f/4 Sayre Monocular on an Equatorial Platform
30mm Widescan II with Lumicon Coma Corrector
13mm Ethos
5mm Monocentric
2" 2X Powermate
2" NPB filter

Conditions:
Sky - totally clear and transparent
Seeing - Mostly excellent, occasionally dropping to very good or good
Limiting Magnitude - at least 6.8
Site - "In the blue", altitude approximately 5,150 feet
Moisture - none noticeable on any exposed surface
Wind - Calm with very occasional extremely light wind (1-2 mph?)

I began viewing as I often do with M57. It was not yet dark, and I
could only make out Shulafat (and not Sheliak), but I nevertheless
found the Ring with my 30mm. I quickly switched to the Ethos, and the
view was so rock solid (and M57 was not far from the zenith) that I
immediately put the Ethos and Powermate together, and enjoyed a
stunning view of the Ring, with the central star clearly visible by
direct vision. I don't believe I have previously seen the central star
at such a low magnification (342X). I shared the view with Alvin Huey,
then replaced the eyepiece with a 5mm Monocentric. Now I could see
scalloped edges to the ring, but the central star was certainly less
visible. Still, I could tell that this was a superb viewing night.

Over the next few hours I viewed a number of targets - nebulae and
globulars in Ophiucus and Sagittarius, as well as Hickson 68 near Ursa
Major. (The view of 3 face-on and one elliptical galaxies with a
bright star in the field is quite stunning with the Ethos/Powermate.)
I then turned my attention to Pegasus, viewed NGC7331, and several
attendant smaller galaxies (or at least, apparently smaller). For what
turned out to be the highlight of my evening, I moved about a degree
north and had by far my best view ever of a galaxy group, including
NGC7345 and 7342 as well as 5 additional galaxies. What a nice view of
two softly glowing cores, close together! (M+6-49-56, 60, 61, 66 and
UGC12127 are the other galaxies in the group).

Later on, I had a good view of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster.

By 3, a number of observers had left, and I decided to pack it in. The
sky was still excellent when I pulled out at 4:10.

Clear skies,
Shneor Sherman