Hawksmoor

 Just got back from a holiday in Brittany. Enjoyed some nice although small views of Mars and Saturn through my Altair Astro 66mm. Refractor.  Viewing these planets this year from a lower latitude really helps. If the weather is kind this week, I will try to image them from my backyard through my larger scope. Hopefully both will appear sometime through the night between the roofs of my neighbours' houses. Such fun!

I'm wondering whether another mouthful of cake will result in an irreversible gravitational collapse of my energy depleted body?

Bathonian fossils.

Quick image from my time spent in our Lowestoft backyard in daylight!

Batteries charged, mount polar aligned,white light solar filters made and fitted and laptop clock synchronised with atomic clock. Come on Mercury!  I'm up for it and prepared.

Children's eyes are far sharper than those of adults. When asked what he could see through his small plastic telescope, my 5 year old grandson Ozzie said " Tim Peake on the space station". Clearly I should have gone to Specsavers!

One transit, two shadow transits and the GRS and...................wall to wall cloud.  GRRRRRRx3.  I'm right pigged off!  It doesn't matter how many times I look at BBC weather for Lowestoft or SAT24 or out the window, all I can see is CLOUD with a high chance of precipitation. GRRRRRRRx27.  Thats pigged off cubed.

A very cold and frosty night on the east coast. The moon just passed full, complete with atmospheric halo, is being followed closely by a very bright Jupiter. I'm off to my warm bed, too cold and bright for scopes and cameras!

M44 from our backyard a real pretty thing with lots of red giants  and white dwarfs. 127mm Apo-refractor, Altair Astro Field flattener and x0.8 focal reducer + Canon 600D DSLR. February 2016 + some Neil's spikes.

Latest images I have taken of Comet Catalina in the early hours of 19th Jan show no ion tail.  Should have been clearer than in first images taken on the 15th as much higher in sky and after street lights turned off. Much more moonlight though. Dust tail better in more recent images.  I have been thinking that moonlight might affect visibility of ion tail more than the dust.  Otherwise, I suppose it could be a line of sight geometry issue?  Any useful comments would be welcome.