Well my sky time has been pathetically poor recently and it doesn't show much sign of getting better in the next couple of weeks.My last observing session was the 4th of December,a quick hour in the garden and one new ngc object and as usual Rubbish seeing conditions.i keep telling myself I wont bother with the garden again but you have to get time when you can :( well the weather has been very bad recently with high winds and rain.i doubt most people have had much luck the last month.there were a few clear night a bit back but ive been having car trouble so have not been able to get out anywhere but hopefully I get the car back Saturday so will be able to take advantage of any clear dark skies.

Have now done just under 12 hours of grinding on my 22" blank and im much closer to having the back grinded flat but still have a little bit of a raised section but hopefully I can get this out by grinding the back into a slight concave then bringing it back a little.Im also not 100% confident in my straight edge(I know,how paranoid) so im going to buy another just to be on the safe side as a few quid is worth it in the scheme of things.Have been doing a combination of half diameter tool and a smaller 5" tool which looks comedy on the big mirror.

upto now just doing the back flat ive gone through just under 3.5kg of 80 grit so I definitely need to get some 60 for the front or im going to need a 25kg sack of 80!!!!hoping by the end of next week to have the back flat and smoother through 220 to 400 grit and the casting marks ground off the front and a start to the curve but what matters more is getting it right so I don't have to redo anything!!

weather for the next week isn't looking too good so looks as though that's another couple of weeks with no observing until the moon goes back down but may sneak an hour early hours of tomorrow and same Friday into Saturday if im lucky,which I aren't.

on another note-the girlfriend got tickets to sgl in Portsmouth and I said I wasn't interested!!!!!am I mad?well you are lucky to see stars from Portsmouth so observing is out and im not a big fan of groups so I gave my ticket up for my girlfriends 8yo niece who will have a juch better time than me :)

hopefully have a big mirror update in a week or two