Not bright, but the altitude is good, at 38 degrees, and the depth is 2.4 magnitude for 4.0 sec at full width. In the dark skies south of Tres Pinos, it should be quite do-able. KB is also interested, so we could get two chords and get a good astronmetry and perhaps get luck with a "graze" or more. The star is near the "Teaspoon" of Sagittarius. This is the more favorable and easily observed of the two events this week near Tres Pinos.
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A nice success! Kirk and I carpooled down, loading up my RAV4 and taking off at 10:08pm. The weather forecast said we'd have clear skies in Hollister, but in fact, it was looking grim at that point. After all the driving, it was still foggy in Hollister, and in Tres Pinos, and in Paicines. I kept driving, my mental limit being Pinnacles National Park. If it was foggy there, we'd limp home tail between legs. Then we spotted Jupiter low in the SE, and got encouraged. Still, at my planned station for Kirk, it was 95% foggy, and I made the decision to instead place him at my site, not far from the CalFire station on Hwy 25 near La Gloria Rd, and I'd continue going south and set up near Pinnacles or south of Pinnacles. That worked out just fine, as soon as we ascended the grade at the south end of the valley, we got into clear dark skies. Clear, moonless, still, stable, and perfect for getting good data. I was even able to set the Watec at 4x integration and get a good steady image of the star at 13.0 magnitude.
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I had to wind about 1.5 miles south of the turnoff to Pinnacles National Park to find a good turnout with a view to the SSE, as the road hugs the hills in that direction for miles. I had no traffic come by in my 1.5 hrs there. Got some nice shots of the Milky Way as well. I set up on the west side of the road in a long wide turnout, and had to overlook big oak trees, but determined they would be low enough to not interfere.
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PyOTE log file and the raw .avi, the PyMovie .csv and the PyOTE.csv files are all on the orange memory stick as usual.
photos sent to me on a .zip file, not yet unpacked and processed.