Rattlesnake lake 4/2/02, recorded 4/4/02:

Setup finished about 8:30, got a late start. Planetary seeing terrible. Planets low over hill, but farther from hill resolution of M42 Trap. also poor, so cooldown may be a problem.

This would have been my big chance for a M. marathon this year, if I had been prepared, which ov course I was not. Moonrise at 1:15 though, so probably a disaster after that, anyway

Sky pretty dark at zenith and east, about 1 mag better then home? SW over Tacoma VERY bad, M41 almost extinguished. Forget extreme south from this site. (All of Corvus' main square rose over ridge to SE in fairly dark sky. This is about as S as it will be possible to view here.)

Pretty nice view of M51 in C14 set up nearby by Russian guy, spiral arms visable but not intensely. Also saw Double Cluster and M53 in that scope.

In mak, saw planetary in Gemini NGC2392, but not too impressive. UHC filter only a slight help, presumably due to limited aperature. Viewed M35, saw overlapping NGC 2158 cluster. Scanned Auriga clusters and Double cluster in Canon binos. Seattle light dome that way pretty intrusive, but not disasterous.

M51 in binos very easy and nicely shaped. M51 in Mak shows maybe a hint of "structure", maybe just a nucleus, but both Russian and some other guy who showed up talking about his 4 inch said they thought it looked pretty good. Found M101 easily in Canons but couldn't get finder on it. A bigger finder and/or a Telrad would be nice.

M53 and M64 easily found, but no resolution or structure. Viewed glob in 9 mm, but looked about the same size as at lower power, so not enough aperature to support high mag. Also viewed M3, but maybe only in binos.

Dewing a big problem-need a shield at least, and a heater, ideally. Big droplets hit scope early but dried, then got knocked out by fogging about 11:15.

Tried N80 but views are not really as satisfying as in Canons due to lower contrast. Need to play with this scope as a spotter and/or unload it.

Finally spent about half an hour on Virgo Cluster with binos. Saw M85, I'm pretty sure (ID ?, not visibility). Couldn't clearly see most galaxies, but area had a soft patchiness, which I took to be the field of NGC galaxies at limit of visibility, so clarity must be pretty good. Should have been able to see M84 and M86, by what I've read, but didn't ID them.

Found M51 from alley when I got home, but much worse in binos.