With that excellent app, Scope Nights, showing that last night would be the only clear-ish night of the week another session beckoned, but it was patchy at best with light cloud rolling in for much of the time but in between the sky seemed pretty clear.

Ronl had previously mentioned Hyades so this was my first target and what a target it is for bins. There was a crystal clear view of the Theta Tauri 1 & 2 pair at the centre with surrounding, similar magnitude stars and many more smaller ones resolved over a 5 minute observation. Interestingly, at 7.00pm there was a fast moving low magnitude object travelling approximately north which I can only imagine to be a satellite - another first (and another followed later too).

I had hoped to aim for the star clusters NGC 869 & 884 in Perseus close to Cassiopeia but sadly the clouds had other ideas.

Last on my list was M35 in Gemini and here I really struggled for the first time (and there are sure to be many more I know). Firstly I mistook Alhena as my pointer but with some help from the ipad managed to rectify this to Mebsuta and I'm pretty certain I managed Tejat and Probus thereafter but I simply could not find M35. I think one problem may be that I am dealing with a fair amount of LP and can only just see Mebsuta unaided, so when I look through the bins there is a huge amount of detail which can be difficult to identify for a beginner like me. Anyway, try as I might over about 40 mins it was not where I was looking. I did see a small cluster below and to the right of Probus with averted vision in which I could resolve a central star surrounded by a fuzzy cloud but that is not where I think M35 should be - felt good to pick it out nonetheless! Anyway, frustrating not to be able to identify but a good experience overall.

I was going to pop out after supper but the weather had other ideas...