Hawksmoor

Beautiful night but sadly not really dark.  Did go out for a couple of hours with my big bins and my 66mm. ED. Altair Doublet Refractor mounted on a photographic tripod. Had some very nice widefield views of Saturn through the Altair scope with a Teleview 2.5x Barlow and Panoptic lens combo. Nice to get a quick look at Antares between roofs but the sting too low for me to see.  Same eyepiece - Barlow arrangement provided quite a splendid view of M16  'The Eagle Nebula'. Have to say the little Altair scope is excellent value for money and with a field flattener performs very well photographically as a DSLR camera telescopic lens at a fraction of the cost of a comparable Canon lens.

All in all a nice way to wile away an hour or two on a warm summer's night. Pound for pound I still rate eyeballing Saturn in real time as one of the best astro-treats on offer.

Night night all you stargazers wherever you are.

George about to nod off in a balmy Oulton Broad.

Been busy during the day with DIY and the evening cloud cover has been a bit patchy, so have not had the scopes out - but instead I have used my bins when the sky has cleared. Thought the sky at dusk  on the 15th June looked like there was a possibility of Noctiluscent Clouds - so I set up my DSLR on a photo tripod and waited. Sadly no high level blue clouds appeared so I took a few random photos of the sky. As it turns out I captured one of the brightest satellite flares I've ever seen.  It was moving across the sky from South to North.

Two consecutive nights under the stars with my telescope and could have gone for three in a row but needed a bit more sleep as grandchildren will arrive tomorrow.  

Night night stargazers.

George 'tired but happy' in Lowestoft.

Watched the ISS go over three tiimes in one night, got some very noisy video of Saturn when it briefly appeared between the roofs of our neighbours' houses (by heck it appears lower than Antares), took some better video of Jupiter with all the Galileans strung out on one side, had a quick look at Comet Johnson and then it was twilight again.  Nights 'up north' dont last long this time of the year, serves us right for living on a tilty planet.  Mind you it was lovely to see the summer Milky Way again running through Cygnus and right across the sky. If the weather stays good, I might have another night with my scope under the stars. Two nights in a row - woo-hoo!

Well I've set up my scope and I'm sat in the garden with bits of glass, cameras, wires and laptop waiting for it to get dark. This twilight malarky hangs about a bit in late May!

Well the weather turned out better than the forecast and as I didn't get 'wellied'' on cocktails I decided to trust myself  in the garden with my 11x80mm. bins.  Such fun!.  Managed to see Callisto far out in its orbit around Jupiter, two comets : 'Johnson'  not far from Delta Bootes and '41P' low in Lyra, and three Globular star clusters M13, M92 and M5. 

It seemed to me that the coma and or tail associated with Comet 'Johnson' was more extensive than that associated with '41P' but the densest part of '41P' around the nucleus appeared brighter.

Shame I didn't get the scope out as originally planned because I think there was an Io transit this evening.  Anyway, no moaning, all in all it turned out to be a great night for stargazing !  

Hopefully, tomorrow night will be good enough to get the telescope out and look for Saturn low on my horizon in the early hours.

George 'relatively sober' and much cheered by some top-notch binocular viewing from Lowestoft

Its been a funny old day here in Suffolk. One moment sunny the next rain but hey am I depressed - not me- well just a little.  I was hoping to get my big scope out on the mount and stay up to see if Saturn cleared my neighbour's roof at the back of our yard but the weather forcast for tonight is more of the same.   

Any way,  I v'e had a good shed day.  Spectrometer Mark 3 continues apace.  Without the aid of a lathe Ive reduced the diameter of a round aluminium bar inorder that it will plug into my telescope's focuser.  Next step is to drill it to take the fibre optic cable that arrived through the post last week. I have no idea whether my latest design proposal  will work but thats half the fun of it!

Good news is - BBC Weather Lowestoft says that tomorrow night it's going to be 'cloud free' Woo Hoo!

Just had my first ever 'Strawberry Daiquiri' cocktail - nice!

George 'unlikely to be sober tonight' in Lowestoft

Nice day but now it's raining again! Tomorrow the shed beckons, l have a plan Moriarty.

George, soggy in Suffolk, currently and comfortably ensconced in his sleeping chariot.

I have just put a post in the wrong album. Can anyone tell me how to delete it or better still move it to the appropriate album?

Confused of Lowestoft.

Woo Hoo!  

Eight years after we put up a bird-box with a web-cam in it,  we finally aquired our first family of 'birdoes'.  All a bit blurry but good fun watching the four 'blue tit' chicks being fed by their parents.  My word those little birds work hard to raise a family and we can watch them doing it from the comfort of our living room, even when its cloudy and raining!

Tweet dreams Stargazers 

Back home in Lowestoft tonight and I can see a few stars between the clouds. Good heavens!  

It's not everyday that you get to see Galileo' s telescopes and his index finger and thumb in two glass jars! 

Today, without any intention or plan and purely at random, I chose to walk along a road in Florence on which was located the house from which Galileo Galilei first observed the Medicean Stars or Galilean Moons as we know them. How lucky am I and how brilliant is this?

George currently not in Lowestoft.