What a large crowd! It was really fun seeing both old and new faces, and matching new faces with e-mail personalities. Jim Ster (KTM&PS), Jane Smith (KATM&PS), and Francis Lau (my coworker who has accompanied us to BC and Fiddletown in the past) were there.
It was fun to see so many TAC-SACers amidst the throng of TAC. We had a blast. We went to a BBQ at Jim's S.O.'s parents' house yesterday. That was really nice. We had our inaugural meeting of TAC-SHT (Shingletown airport designation, heh heh).
I was there from Wednesday through last night, observed at Bumpass Hell all nights (although I moved to Devasted when Bumpass clouded up on Thursday night).
I did 3 all-nighters in a row.
I found the Veil Nebula for the first time (I had never bothered to look for it before, since it's in the Zone of Avoidance), because Jim wanted to see it. (We also observed the direct city lights of some town, possibly Chico, in the valley and observed cars moving on multiple city streets in Jim's 12" SCT, which was pointed noticeably below the horizontal. We also observed aircraft taking off from Sacramento Metro airport. I found all this terrestrial observing hilarious and fun and interesting.)
I saw the central star of the Ring Nebula clearly, though intermittently last night.
I added 12 Hickson Compact Galaxy groups to my collection, and ran out of new ones to see at the time I was looking last night. I obviously need a secondary (and maybe a tertiary) observing program!
A great time was had by all, based on the approving comments I overheard on the conditions, especially Friday and Saturday nights.
Oh yes. I was KS of Bumpass Hell last night! But nobody came before me bowing deeply. What's up with that?
