Gfamily

best of luck for tomorrow then.

Yes. though of course, Polaris goes round half as slowly as the clock hand would. ETA - and in the opposite direction.

Think of it as a clock face, then the position of Polaris is where the hour hand would be at a time of 8:22. I use the SAM Console app (from SkyWatcher) on my phone , and this is how it shows.

Bookings open on 1st September I think - book early and get it at 2018 prices (£45 per person including camping), the price goes up to £50 at the end of November (£20 / £25 for ages 13-16 year olds) - very family friendly. https://www.facebook.com/solarsphere/

We were at our first Solarsphere this year, and it was really good. Here's the comment I put on their Facebook page. "If Carlsberg did star parties... They wouldn't be a patch on Solarsphere. Such a great bunch, and sooo friendly. Having 8 year olds checking your wristband going into the talks is just one indication of what a 'different' festival this one is. What's noticeable is the fact that there are really high profile speakers prepared to come to talk with us, but you get the feeling it's not just another speaking engagement for them, and they're really approachable. So massive thanks to everyone involved. A couple of weeks ago we were at Bluedot, which was great; but this was ... something special."

There's a lot of intrusion from the surrounding cities - and Peak Star Party (at Shallow Grange) was affected by flood lighting of local quarries. More affected by rain as it happens, but still, the skies can be significantly affected by LP

The Mid Cheshire Astro Soc met last Thursday and had an interesting talk about light pollution from Malc Beesley from Macastro. He's part of the MyDarkSky project, which aims to allow followers to plot their own SQL and NELM measurements on Google Maps, with the hope that it will be a resource for locals and visitors, and also maybe a campaigning tool if a locally dark sky site is threatened. The site is currently offline (it was up for a couple of years, but has been down for the last 12 months), but it is now being re-hosted, and will be available on http://www.mydarksky.com/defaultsitein due course. The maps will look like this, and the hope is for coverage to be national or wider