Weather clear and sunny all day, but from about 2030hrs banks of fast moving clouds scoll west to east.

Well they say every cloud cloud has a silver lining.......This mornnings cloud, was the fact that I get laid off from work !......tonights silver lining is that I get to stay up all night and don't have to get up early! woo hoo!....also I've just picked up a new Baader Hyperion 5mm so infact theres two silver linings!

Started out on M57 ( It's eaily found with my newly fitted rigel quickfinder ), which again, from this location and in this scope, looks a bluish light green colour, and stands out very well from the surrounding sky.

I decide to turn my attention to M31.

It's higher in the sky from here ( compared to my house.)and it's the brightest I've ever seen it.

With averted vision the core of M31 looks starlike......A small stalike companion sits burried in m31's dusty glow......Is this M32?......I decide to do a sketch but it's inturrupted by cloud and so ends up being incomplete.I'll put it in my album nonetheless .......

I also try for the Triangulum Galaxy but with no luck, after ages trying I just wander about between Purseus and Cassiopeia.......a beautifull part of the sky, which ive not really explored before as puseus is blocked completely at my house....After a while I stumble accross a beatifull pair of clusters, or least thats what I'm guessing they are.

One has a very tightly packed core, with two bright eyes sparkling out at me....one of these eyes has an eyebrow.....of diamonds!......The other cluster isn't so tightly packed together, and seems to contain more orange stars.Two loosley paired on the fringes and two closley paired nearer the core.

The deeper I look into these clusters ,the blacker and deeper the core looks...amazing sight....in fact I spend most of the night gazing into these, at various mags until I notice Betelgeuse and Orions belt.It's the first time I've seen these and I get excited at the thought of seeing M42.

I get a small 10min window of oppertunity while M42 sits between a house and a tree.........Awesome! I stare open mouthed at it because it's Knocked me for six.....

The amount of Nebulosity, even this low down, is staggering.

Four stars sit in a hammock of greyish dust, almost as if they're weighing it down, and they light up the surrounding gas.....The gas extends in butterfly wings north and south and seems to dull down and then brighten up again around neighbouring stars......a truly amazing sight!.

My last target is Mars.Appearing above the houses and still very low down it sits shimmering in soupy atmosphere....I go up in mag but it really does no good....false colour is apparant at both sides of the planet....which looks a little sqaushed and not quite "full"...the right hand edge ( as i look through the ep) looks white but i'm not sure if this is due to really poor visual conditions becuase it's dancing around like crazy and showing me just about every colour in the rainbow...still it's really nice to see it and With that high note, I decide to call it a night.It's about 0330hrs and my new discoveries include the purseus double cluster ( I'll have to check stellarium and confirm this),the constellation orion and it's beatifull m42 and mars to top it all off....thanks Geoff if ya hadn't laid me off I'd have missed it all!...Every cloud does have a silver lining..