Hawksmoor

Sounds Brilliant! Never been to Lanzarote but some ten years ago I enjoyed the stars in Sagitarius from Teneriffe and Fuertaventura. Am looking forward to a week at Les Granges with Olly Penrice in October. Will be good to look at treats which are near or below my southern horizon. Hope you enjoy your holiday and thanks for your comment.

I decided to try the month's free access to the Bradford Robotic Telescope on Mount Teide, Teneriffe. So thanks 'Sky at Night' Magazine! The free trial is limited to a number of given objects and the exposures and filters are all preset, so you cannot go wrong, but all in all I was quite pleased. I am considering investing the less than prohibitive £3 a month inorder to try out the real thing. Seems to me a very inexpensive way of accessing objects near or below my southern horizon with better kit than I can afford under clearer skies. I also can do it without getting cold or staying up half the night. This month in Lowestoft it has been mega-wet and if autumn turns out anything like the summer, I cannot see me gathering many photons in my backyard!

Walking along bits of Hadrian's Wall from the west with grandchildren. Might get to visit Keilder Observatory but not in charge of itinerary. Didn't go for the 72mm as 66mm had wider field of view, plus less weight and cost . Have to say it was a bit of an impulse buy during a particularly expensive month! I think I got away with it! Thanks for your comment

It's a very miserable afternoon in Lowestoft. It is raining and the sky is an unrelieved expanse of grey stretching from horizon to horizon. Early this morning the sky was clearer but not sufficiently devoid of cloud to permit the useful deployment of my 'scope. Due mainly to my overwhelming cheerfulness, I spent a happy pre-dawn hour with my 11x80mm binoculars looking at all the usual summer astro-culprits . This afternoon I have been removing malware with mixed success from two laptops. Why do companies and individuals invest so much time in devising and spreading digital diseases across the internet? On a much more positive note and egged on by my son, I purchased an Altair Astro Lightwave 66ED-R refractor to go on my Star Adventurer mount. Its a very nice looking bit of kit, all new and nicely engineered in its aluminium travel case. Next month I'm off to Northumberland for a week's holiday, so weather permitting and assisted by some of my grandchildren, I should be aquiring some widefield photographs of the 'dark' night sky. No wonder excitement mounts!

Every year in June the red super-giant star Antares becomes visible from our south facing bedrooms and over the roof tops. This year Saturn can be seen just above the claws of Scorpius,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,quite a sight without binoculars or a telescope. I managed to get a nice photo with my little Lumix compact camera balanced on the window-sill. The minimal light pollution after midnight and the lightly applied assistance of APS providing all the help this inexpensive camera needs to capture this star 600 light years distant and nearing the end of its pre-supernova existence.

Good Heavens its round.

You are welcome! Hope you get some great widefield planetary images.

I look forward to Saturn coming to opposition each year or each 378 days to be precise. The sky over our backyard in the early hours of the 24th of May was clear and the stars shone bright. In the east, the stars of Cygnus and Lyra were shining brightly and Saturn was a brightish yellow presence due south over my neighbour's house rooftops. Through the eyepiece its rings shone bright, the Seeliger effect making a clear difference. Sadly, my imaging and images were affected by the planet's low altitude and the turbulent atmosphere through which the reflected light from the planet had travelled. Images taken with my 2.5x Barlow were significantly better than those in which I used my 3x Barlow. I managed to get some still images of the planet's moons using my Canon 600D DSLR and made a composite image using the image of the planet obtained with my QHY5v camera. I really like placing the planets in a starry background. For me it provides context for the subject of my photographs.

The 26th of April turned out to be a nice clear night. It wasn't balmy out but on the other hand it was metallic simian cold! Winter was behind me and as I looked up at the waxing moon I noticed that Jupiter was much further west than it had been a few weeks before. I decided to capture my last Jovian images of the season and take a picture or two of the our old Moon. As a bonus I managed to get some video clips of Venus as it climbed above our house extension roof. I'm looking forward to seeing the summer constellations and the Milky Way arching over our backyard. As I get older I'm turning into a warm weather astronomer!

Had some problems with the operation of the first Star Adventurer delivered to my house. My email to First Light Optics was acted upon within a few hours and from that moment onwards I received excellent customer support. This week I received a fully operational replacement. FLO organised all the transport arrangements for the replacement and return of the old unit. The process was seamless. As a retired company director with past responsibilities for customer satisfaction I was much impressed by Steve B at FLO. I consider myself a valued customer and cannot wait to get imaging with my new Star Adventurer. Thank you very much FLO team George Roberts (Hawksmoor)