It feels rather sad that due to the very wet April and very cool and cloudy May I have effectively missed most of the spring night sky. It is now nearing the end of May, this week the clouds suddenly disappeared and the temperature has risen from about 13 to 23 in the space of a few days. Weather forecasts seem to be all over the place - some say it will be cloudy, others not... today was supposed to be cloudy but it was a clear blue sky all day.

I managed about 30 minutes of solar gazing this evening before the sun went behind some branches, it's becoming quite clear that my EQ1 is struggling, especially with the new Baader Hyperion Zoom eyepiece I bought for the LS60; I have to say, I probably find the 10mm X-Cel to be slightly better, but the zoom is handy for quickly changing views with minimal refocusing. It may just be a matter of getting used to the eyepiece, and the fact that I haven't had opportunity to do any solar gazing for a while.

I saw a large prominence on the left of the sun, a couple of nice big sun spots, some rather large filaments too which seems to stretch right across the entire disc. A few loops and clouds around the limb too.

I feel so tired though after being at work all day and on my feet a lot, crawling under computer desks, etc! I just don't know if I have the energy to get the NEQ6 out. Really wishing I had that CG-4 now, it is still on back-order (why does that always seem to happen to me??)