I have work tomorrow so this is gonna be a shot obs session.

Beautiful suny day, in fact one of the best all year I think.I went out on the bike to recce a couple of potential dark sites but forgot to put the scope out till 2030 !...Doh!

went out at 2100 to patchy, fluffy banks of orange clouds skitting accros the sky.Typical...clear all day and then starts to cloud over as the scope comes out !.

Well, the darkest and most cloud free area appears to be vega....so thats where I start.

Vega looks amazing (as always) and even when there are no other stars visible , Vega nearly always puts in an appearance.

I sit and wonder how big and how bright it must be if it were only a couple of light minutes away.....

Whilst I'm here I decide to recheck myself with regards to m57 and sulafat and hip93017..........mmmmmmmmm.............Sulafat does not look that blue tonight.......93017 (which after another look at stellarium reveals itself to be a binary?...gonna have to do more digging around because i just don't know enough)...yes 93017 looks a warm yellow, but not as pronounced as the last time.

The small red jewel that sits off to one side of these(not sure name:check up) is a real gem (no pun intended), small but definately value for money!......soooo red.

No matter how hard I try I cannot discern any colour in the ring nebula tonight.It's grey/white.....dusty...no colour.

I can't quite get it to resolve into it's donut shape either, with or without averted vision........I do however, notice that the sky is infused with a grainy orange glow....I try the 7mm ( which worked a treat in my other scope) but no joy.Too dim and still no colour.

Conclusions?...dunno?...apperture?...the sky from here is a lot less nuetral black and more orange (light pollution) maybe this is washing out the colours?.....inexperience?....all three?....probably.

Must do more observations !...more sketches.....then look back and compare....simples..!

While it's still clear (fuzzy banks of clouds are rolling along like waves one after the other) I decide to have a go at the double double, E1 and E2 Lyra (my first double in fact so I know this scope is capable).

The 17mm frames the pair (or 2 pair ) very nicely.A couple of really nice orange stars set the scene off nicely.E1 and E2 are nestled in a sparking 'v' shape that doesn't quite meet in the middle.

I attempt a sketch but the amount of stuff in there is scary !....about half way through i'm struggling with the all pervasive orange glow and the odd bank of thick cloud, so I can't make everything out all the time.For this reason ( and the fact i rushed my sketches a little tonight) I feel my sketches this evening are not all that accurate.

Wow... a satellite, at least i think it's one.I can't see a trail behind it. moves very quickly across the FOV....I'm well chuffed at this, I'll include this in my sketch ( I think I've marked It's course reasonably accurately.

Not long after I mark this one, another one come along ! about half the speed of the first I think ( difficult to tell for sure as the 1st took a shorter path and therefore took less time anyway) and goes from about 12 o clock straight down the eyepiece and out the bottom.

I love it when stuff like this happens!.It's a real thrill when a sat. or even better a meteorite zooms past.It's a bustling place up there and its good to be reminded just how, everchanging and exciting the cosmos is.

the last real target was m31 but again I'm plagued by cloud.One minute it's there and I decide to sketch ,and the next it's gone.

At 7mm the collective light from m31, lights up the eyepiece before i've even got to it! it must be the whole width of the eyepiece....It's a monster!

Looking out at another galaxy....sounds incredible...but here I sit, looking out accross the vastness of space, and in drop the photons of light from our galactic neighbours.........I wonder what they're upto....is there life looking up at our collective light right now?...another me peering into their telescope and looking our way?........

if they are they're probably wondering where that infernal orange glow is comming from!.........the clouds roll over and the neighbours dissapear behind another bank of cloud, so I decide to call it a night.