Belated report from 17-7-7

[GazOC]

I got home from work at 7pm and decided to have 10 minutes on the sofa to recharge my batteries, I woke up at half nine, looked outside - there wasn't a cloud in the sky and I'd had a good enough sleep to have a really late nights observing.

I set up my 7" Mak around 11pm and started imaging Jupiter about half past, visually I could only make out one band and the hint of another but the images didn't come out too bad given the low altitude of the planet at that time of night. Jupiter disappeared into the crud so I put the Mak away so as it looked like being a good night for seeing I got my 14" Dob out and toured most of the summer Messiers but most of the nebulous objects in Saggitarius (to low or poor eyes?) eluded me however and I had to make do with the open clusters in that area.

Around 02:30 I noticed Mars starting to clear my fence so I put the Dob away while I still had the strength and setup my ED100 to observe the planet. I couldn't make out anything in the way of surface detail so I decided to see if I could get an image. Given the small size of Mars at the moment I was pretty pleased with the result from the best of the 5 .avis, by this stage I was cold and tired so I put the scope away a went inside to process the .avis - I woke up at 05:30 on the sofa with a bad neck and no .avis processed!

It was probably the best night out I've had this year, some observational stuff with a large scope sandwiched inbetween a bit of planetary imaging. The best of both worlds!!

[geppetto]

Well worth getting a stiff neck for...

Nice one Gaz, pity we dont get more chances, I'd love to get

the big DOB out and the other gear as well for a long session 8)

[zhgutas]

Glad you had a wonderful session Gaz. i just can't wait to get my share of long dark and clear sky