Stu

Absolutely! Monday night wasnt far off that for me.

Good stuff Magnus. We've had a good run of clear nights just recently haven't we? I managed two nights, like you nothing exotic but still worthwhile.

Nice to see some activity, good captures given the conditions.

Wow, lovely scope. Quite jealous Welcome to the forum

I don't disagree with you, if it's clear and I'm free and not too tired and have a pass from the Mrs and and and, then I will go out regardless. I think you CAN affect things within your control like where observe from, and try to avoid things which interfere with the seeing too much, but if the jet stream is over head then there is little point in trying to observe tight doubles for instance. If seeing is poor, and transparency good, try low and mid power deep sky stuff If seeing is good and transparency poor then try brighter, higher power targets like the moon, planets or doubles. If both are poor then it may be best to stay in and buy some new kit

You can't change the seeing conditions, but can optimise your chances of getting good views. First would be to keep an eye on the jet stream forecast and choose nights when it is not running overhead when you want to use high powers. Outside this, if you set up on grass, try to avoid looking over houses, buildings or roads which give off heat and generate convection currents as they cool at night. Heating plumes also play havoc with the seeing, aswell as aircraft contrails. Finally, I think I've said elsewhere that observing in the early hours often offers the best conditions as everything has cooled down and the atmosphere has settled. It's the toughest time to observe, but if you don't have to get up early it can be very rewarding.

You could also add a 40mm 65 or 68 degree eyepiece to that list. I have one which was very reasonable and gives good results. This image shows the fov of four different eyepieces in your scope, overlaid on M45 as an example. From inside to out they are: 32mm Panaview 30mm 82 degree ES 38mm Panaview 40mm Paragon 38 or 40mm would seem to make most sense to me.

Cartes du Ciel is a PC planetarium that many people like. I've not used it myself, I'm a Skysafari fan and use it on my phone all the time. Stellarium is another good free program and app.

You could try one of the 7.2 to 21.5mm zoom clones like the OpticStar, coupled with a Baader x2.25 Barlow might be a combo suited to the Heritage in terms of weight and cost? http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Accessories-Telescopes-Opticstar.asp?p=0_10_5_1_8_330 https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/baader-planetarium-2.25x-q-barlow-lens-1.25.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4MjBnNiV5wIVgbTtCh2_WwaiEAQYAiABEgJoF_D_BwE

I had some great views from the Pembrokeshire coast last summer.

Clear here but I'm pretty tired and I doubt a third session on the trot would go down very well!

Very true Doug! Worth observing when conditions aren't up to the higher powers.

Just keep an eye on the age of the threads you are posting on. This one dates from 2013 so I imagine things may have moved on a bit since then.

That great, yes must be something to do with the Kruppax. Mine weren't running with dew last night, they were frozen! Nice thing about the Mewlon is that it has no corrector plate so even though there was some frost on the inside of the OTA the optics stayed clear.

Nice shots Paul, glad you've been able to grab some more images. It certainly looked beautiful this morning when I left home at about 6.45am, it was regularly in sight for most of my journey to work which was nice. Forecast looking dodgy moving forward though so we may have had the best if it for a while.