When I arrived, Mark was setting up, Tom H was already set up, and Joe B's telescope was sitting untended in the yard with Joe nowhere in sight. Seems Joe grabbed the wrong case as he headed out the door, and his binoculars were not a good substitute for his eyepieces... Good thing he lives close enough to run home and swap the cases, because his 12" dob got a good workout last night. John W made his appearance shortly after Joe got back, and then new member Jim C (I believe - if only I could remember names), so we had quite a group. I was armed with my 22x100's, John had some 16x70's, Joe had his 'water heater', Tom had his small apo (?) and Mark set up his excellent 8" 'Newt on a GEM' rig shortly after shooting new his LXD-75 mount in the head to put it out of its misery.
Long before full twilight, the Milky Way was showing all the way from the horizon thru Cygnus, so we knew we were in for some great stuff. Jupiter was lovely thru the bino's, and one moon was just coming out of hiding and clearing the west limb by about 10"-20" which increased quite a bit as the evening progressed. Mark suggested searching for Comet Lulin, which was in Ophiuchus next to a very distinctive asterism, so I spent some time on that, but no luck at this time. Also, the Skyhound finder chart had expired the day before, and we were having to guesstimate the actual location. The asterism, however, was unmistakable, so I put this one in my back pocket for later. Some quick Messier objects were done next, M8 (which was naked-eye), M20, M17, and M13 were done, and then Joe suggested looking for NGC 6239, a galaxy he has dubbed 'the Flea' for its size and difficulty. We nailed it in his 12", and then to my great surprise, I found it in the 22x100's. Averted vision, sure, but no doubt as to its identity, since it forms a nearly perfect equilateral triangle with a pair of 9.5 mag stars. While waiting for full darkness, I played with M31 (no companions) and the double cluster, a few globs in Capricorn, M30, M75 and Aquarius (M2) then up to M15, which was visible but very high, which was tough with the binos. For some reason M72 eluded me all night, even when I could find M73 and the Saturn Nebula.
Back to Comet Lulin. It was gone behind the trees, or so I thought. Seeing the marker stars in a gap between two trees, I quickly found the asterism, and after much study the comet appeared in nearly the anticipated location. I have rechecked the location in Starry Night Pro, and the location is accurate. Another comet bagged!!! That was worth the price of admission for the whole evening.
Then someone suggested NGC 7331, the galaxy that Steve L was intending to image last night. It was found by Mark's Newt, and I think Tom also slewed to it. Joe gave me his dob, and it was an easy find in Pegasus, but none of its companion galaxies were visible, even at power with a 12". Good luck to Steve... Interesting galaxy, though, giving the appearence of being lopsided when viewed in the eyepiece.
Back to M31, and the whole trio was visible now that it was dark, then off to NGC 891. I don't want to talk about this.
By now, we had the Pleiades creeping above Mark's treeline with excellent nebulosity, and we also viewed M57 and the Veil in at least two telescopes.
There were many other targets, maybe some of the others can fill in the gaps. I took no notes, since this was a pure fun evening. We broke up just after 1am, and by 1:30 I was in bed. It was a classic evening for just running around the sky, having a good time with good friends. Let's hope that this weather stays with us for a while.
I forgot about that completely. I enjoyed the view my UW80 CVO 15 mm gave of these in my Antares 8" f/5 Newt, in the same FOV 
