The Night Sky... Stunning

[Nexus 6]

It appears from a few posts I have seen that conditions for the past few hours have been exceptional for many of us.

Lack of decent nights recently may be a small factor in why though. I thought for me here in North Lincolnshire they were outstanding, only the wind stopped it being faultless.

We don't seem get too many as nice.

Summing up... out of 10 I would give 8.5.

Hope it was just as good for you where ever you happened to be.

[Les E]

HI Nexus,

Ideal conditions here in Midlothian,a bit frosty with -2C,but very little misting due to quite low humidity and a light breeze,a little cloud after 4am but good veiws of Saturn,Comet Garradd,M13 and Ring Nebula.

Regards Les.

[Bart]

yesterday evening/this morning exceptional here in Cork. Dragged myself to bed only after I had lost all feeling in my feet. Was out so long even brought the scope back into the garage to demist (using gentle heat and a fan!) and back out again afterwards. I expect to resemble the waking dead today/tomorrow. However, you gotta take advantage of conditions like that. As you said, its probably the best night in some time, and it happened on a Sat night...perfect. The astronomy Gods must have relented and given us a break. What a night!

Bart

[JonnyP]

I was out from about 8.30 last night but unfortunately my fairly restricted view was allowing me to see a lot of things that I've seen many times before, if that makes sense. I have a lot of LP being only just out of the city centre, so I although I started with a really nice look at M42/43 - the crispest and most defined that I've seen them - my hunt for M78 was fruitless yet again.

I turned to Mars which showed more detail with perhaps a hint of banding across the middle and definite whiteness at one pole when I added a 2x Barlow to my 10mm EP. (Taking the mag above a useful level, I know!)

And after a few more objects I was struggling to find anything that I wanted to look at.

A quick look at M34 in Perseus which I found slightly underwhelming again. But then I turned to the Double Cluster. Beautiful! It surprises me every single time I look at it. And that was a good point to stop.

I'm getting to the stage where LP is really frustrating me. I couldn't make out Cancer, for instance.

Tonight I'm heading somewhere darker....

[Matthew]

Where are you heading tonight Jonny,theres the site in Blaenavon which the welsh group uses,and its not going to be too windy,,so conditions should be perfect for the site

[swamp thing]

Let's hope we get some more decent skies they've been a bit thin on the ground recently.

[JonnyP]

Where are you heading tonight Jonny,theres the site in Blaenavon which the welsh group uses,and its not going to be too windy,,so conditions should be perfect for the site

Hmm, haven't decided yet because the cloud cover is looking fairly complete at the moment, despite the weather forecast. And I'm feeling really lazy today. My wife and kids have gone out, I SHOULD go and do some training but I've put a pot of coffee on, Top Gear on Dave and positioned my book close at hand... Tonight I may have more energy!

If I go out, it will probably be either up around the Lliw reservoirs somewhere, or Gower. Blaenavon is a bit too far to go unless I was meeting people.

[R1gel]

Clear night down in Dorset with excellent seeing.

I am a newbie. Do you mean to say that I cannot expect every night to be like this one!

Has taught me that I need warmer clothes though. Hey Ho a great night.

[Double Kick Drum]

The last two nights have been amazing. I managed to rack up almost 10 hours viewing between the morning session on the 19th and the evening session the same day. In that time, I managed to identify 25 deep sky objects new to me.

Hooray I have a day off work to recover!