Despite the almost full moon and several inches of frozen snow on the ground, I decided to get out and see what I could see using the new Binocular tripod mount bracket I'd just purchased from FLO. The snow was crunchy under foot, like someone had sugar-coated the ground.

I printed off December's sky map and set my sights for M37, described as 'Very fine star cluster'.

After spending some time reading the star map the wrong way around I finally figured out which part of the sky I should be looking at, but by this time a large bank of cloud was approaching and some smaller clouds were making their way across my field of view.

I think I was in the right area, I may even have found Auriga, but M37, M36, and M38 eluded me. I assume the moon was just too bright, almost everything but the brightest stars were washed out, I couldn't even find the Great Square of Pegasus or Jupiter (probably mostly due to the cloud).

It started to snow just as I was packing up, although by the time I got inside I noticed it had cleared again. I'd had enough of freezing my nuts off anyway - next time I should wear my thicker cords!