Observing Sar 14th Jan 2012

[cyborg421]

For the first time in a while the sky has been good enough to get out to Glooston. Myself and Steve were present and I was out about 8.30.

When I arrived Europa was in transit of Venus but I couldn't pick out any detail, although we did observe it coming out of transit. The GRS was there as well although the seeing for some reason stopped us seeing very clearly.

Next onto the Orion Nebula where I tried out my new nebula filter and it did make a distinct difference, bringing out some of the fainter nebula detail.

I then saw the Cone nebula for the first time and then the Eskimo nebula which I managed to get the 6mm Delos on.

We viewed a few of the old favourites, double cluster in Perseus, M81 and 82 amongst others.

Mar rose but the sky appeared to be getting a little cloudy so we called Phil off as it wasn't looking promising and he was coming from some distance away.

It then began to clear again to a certain extent (sorry Phil) and when Mars was high enough we observed it wih a sodium filter and the polar ice cap was clearly visible. Wow! Another first for me. I could also make out some faint detail on the Martian suface.

The cloud was very variable and we called a day at about 1 a.m.

A night I thoroughly enjoyed.

Simon