Naked eye observation 29/08/14

[RichM63]

WOW what a surprise! The day had been an oily grey colour for most of the afternoon, the odd splash of drizzle passing through and a gusty wind, such that I decided not to set up the telescopes.

However, around 2am my internal alarm clock awoke me and so as per usual, I warmed a mug of tea and ambled outside to be greeted by an absolutely crystal clear sky.

The Milky Way was brilliant, snaking right across the whole of the sky.

Slightly North of East the Pleiades were glittering away fairly low in the sky.

Polar alignment would have been a doddle with Polaris exactly where it should be above my electricity pole from my favoured observing spot.

Above and a little further North, Cassiopea was clearly defined with all stars easily identifyable from eCas, Ruchbah, yCas, Shedir, and Caph shinning like beacons.

Moving West, Almaak and Mirach + Alpheratz made a distinct constellation line with the kink towards Cassiopea easily pointing towards Andromeda.

M31 (the Andromeda galaxy) was visible as a twinkly smudge.

Keeping the Pleiades as an altitude reference I turned facing towards S/E and panned for Uranus about half way between East and South below Pisces. I think I got it but might just be wishful thinking.

The sky was so full of objects that it was not easy to remain balanced and I found myself wanting to fall over backwards.

I decided to end this impromptu session by going back to Cassiopea  and then turning slightly North to see if I could use Cephus and the square of stars to locate comet Jaquess about halfway between the two Cep stars and following the line of Hip stars that almost bisect this line. I can't say that I saw it as a registered object but it must have been there within the millons of other objects.

Almost  finished, when whoosh, straight out of the fairly high North East came a succession of 3 meteors.

Decided to call it quits around 4am, very happy with my unaided session under the clear night sky.

Currently similar weather to yesterday, but I'm tempted to risk setting up later in the day.

Cheers,

Rich

[mjpfc]

Good to hear about your night Rich,

                         I was out doing water rescue Training in the Rain (avoids the need to go near the sea) all evening and only got

back home at ten o'clock.  I went out the back to get the Cats in, and there was the sky !!!!!!

I got the scope out for a few minutes looking at Jacques, and Cephius in general before I succumbed to Tiredness.

Cloudy here as well but I will give it until quite late tonight before I give-up on it.

Mick