I missed an opportunity this evening to go to a new viewing site. That will teach me not to check my mail frequently enough!! As a consolation prize, I decided to have a second look at PANSTARRS, this time from my back garden. It was possible to see it from the bottom of the garden and it was just clearing the side of the neighbours house. As I was going to be observing later, I decided to put the scope at the bottom of the garden for a view of the comet. Curses!! It was too low to see with the dob. A couple of minutes later I had removed the coffee table from the lounge and had raised the dob enough to get a view. The tail was a lot more spectacular in the scope, and at x100 it was a respectable size. Feeling rather chuffed, I had a glass of wine whilst watching the comet a little longer.

after the excitement, the scope was relocated to its usual viewing spot and left to cool down. Not the best of nights for viewing, but a few new ticks were obtained. These were:

M99

M109

M100

M104

All of these were rather dim and took some tracking down. I had tried to see all four of these on previous occasions without luck. This time, they were seen, but in each case a long view as well as occasional averted vision was needed. Roll on a trip to a darker site.

I then spent a bit of time enjoying a few favourites before heading indoors. My remaining Messier objects are going to be tricky from my current location, so an expedition door two will be called for in the hopefully not too distant future.