Mistake worth making

[tom714uk]

Stayed up till 1.20 last night working on a job application only to realize I'd misread the closing date and I had another three days. Glad I did though as the thick blanket of cloud had completely gone by then! Despite a glaring moon I got one of my best nights so far - excellent view of the Double Cluster and managed to properly see the line of really faint stars in Kemble's Cascade - last time I tried it I could only see the cluster and the three brighter stars in an arc.

In a big patch below Andromeda which didn't seem to have many stars in it to the naked eye (NELM was about 4 I reckon) I spotted a smudge of some sort - put the binoculars on it and got a huge bright cluster! 40 stars distinguishable (at a rough guess) with the brightest in a question mark shape. "blumming hell, what's that?" I think. A look at the star atlas and it turns out it's the Pleiades... I'll look forward to them being around a bit earlier in a month or so!

Tom

[PaulB]

M45 look good in binoculars don't they.

But with the sighting of the Pleiades. It does mean were on the slippery slope now towards Autumn.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

M45 look good in binoculars don't they.

But with the sighting of the Pleiades. It does mean were on the slippery slope now towards Autumn.

And there I was thinking autumn set in in early July