Did you get out last night?

[Ganymede12]

I went up to Blaenavon with the other members of the south Wales group. It was spectacular! It was also cold!

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

Norfolk in the UK was clear'ish last night.

did not get any imaging done, very light whispy candyfloss was up above my head, but i did snag me a lovely view of the globular cluster in Cancer.

And as usual saturn as a nice sized grain of salt, but all the same it has rings ( well nearly )

snagged a couple satalites to and also an un-known ( it was traveling backwards so caught my eye right away).

Started at just gone 9:15 and finnished around 12am. only had the heritage 76 on windowsill with a MA 17mm eyepiece.

must say the globular cluster in cancer is well worth a look for the newcomers, with low power eyepieces.

[Auntystatic]

Forecast here was for clear skies from about 22:00 until lunch time today, so out I went at 11pm and set up the neq6 and my big camera lenses, I was for the first time going to be guiding using my new qhy5 and st80, my first night out since March.

It took me an hour to set up as I was using my netbook, by which time it was nice and dark, I was using alignmaster to polar align the mount, unfortunately it needs a star low in the north to do its business, my house is in the way:(

So undaunted I slewed the mount to Vega to check the qhy5 It was very bright on the screen so I moved off to find fainter stars, I am not disappointed in any way with the qhy5.

Once finished mucking around at around 00:30 I thought I would just do the 3 star align with the hand set then hand everything through to mission control in the back bedroom, then I saw the cloudy bits moving in.

Its not often the weathermen get it right but they got it wrong again:mad: at 2am I decided the night was a wash out and packed it all in.

I need an obs as it takes too long and too much energy to set up, which means I need a bigger back garden = house move.

[cthorpey]

Did my first all nighter last night.

Got in from my gig at 12:30 am and left all the gear in the van!

Have started playing around with AP so last night was a very rewarding session with my camera teaching me a great deal about what not to do

Have started taking notes in a little book for the various objects I attempted in an effort to carry on where I left odd next time.

Birthday coming up so a copy of Making Every Photon Count has just appeared in my wishlist.

Doesn't it get noisy as the sun comes up?

[Jon Sales]

We managed to get a few good views of Saturn and Mars from a very dark site whilst conducting a Paranormal Investigation at Bolebroke Castle in Kent.

[tich]

I had the scope out last night for the first time in over a month!! 98% of the time I couldn't use it due to cloud & the other 2% of the time I had work so it wouldn't have been worth dragging it out in the garden.

However it didn't all quite go to plan as when I went to slew round to Venus & one of my motors was making a horrible noise so I ended up stripping the mount slightly to get at it & do a quick fix to get it to work properly. After that little hiccup venus got to low behind the trees so I went round to gaze at Saturn, I was able to see 4 of its moons quite clearly with a 5th popping in & out of view from time to time. After gazing at it for about an hour I did a few webcam captures of it the first one I did is the best one I've managed yet. By the time I thought about looking at Mars the trees got in the way & spoiled that so I went off looking at a few galaxies like the whirlpool galaxy the Black eyed galaxy & the sunflower galaxy. I tried looking at some other fuzzies but the eyepiece ended up being to high & the small steps I use were just sinking in the ground so I thought better of it, I think some sort of modification is needed. A bit of a nightmarish event but I enjoyed it. It was just a shame tiredness kicked in as I would have loved to have been out longer but I think being up for 21 hours after going to work then servicing the car & mowing a wet lawn is quite enough for anyone.....

[klytus]

We managed to get a few good views of Saturn and Mars from a very dark site whilst conducting a Paranormal Investigation at Bolebroke Castle in Kent.

Sounds fascinating,come across anything out of the normal?

[twotter]

After clearing the astronomy viewing area (patio to you and me) during the day, we were out from 23:00 until 01:30. That's a long session for us

Had the best views of Saturn with very clear Cassini and 4 moons.

Turn Left at Orion was dug out and helped tick off 7 more Messiers including M51 (surprised I hadn't seen that before ). Also realised that Leo seemed to have an extra 'star', until a quick look showed it was Mars Small in the eyepiece but sharp with a clear polar cap and dark surface detail. Add in a couple of double stars and globular clusters (M3 was very nice) and a final 15 minutes back on Saturn, and it all made for an excellent session.

:D

[Jon Sales]

Sounds fascinating,come across anything out of the normal?

Just going through video, audio and still camera footage now.

Got over 18 hours of video and audio combined and around 500 photos so it'll take a few days to get through lol.

Our medium got some interesting information though and we've already varified what she picked up through historical websites and archives.

Stay tuned for more info and whilst you're waiting check out my website - www.investigatorsofparanormalphenomena.com

I'll post a full report here in due course

[NigelCampbell]

Oh are you in the macclesfeild astronomy society?

I was concidering joining

I'm not a member Peter, their meetings often clash with when I teach photography but they're a great bunch so I would say its a good society to join if you're in this area.

[Cath]

Stay tuned for more info and whilst you're waiting check out my website - www.investigatorsofparanormalphenomena.com

I'll post a full report here in due course

I think you might have confused this forum for another one

[SFlowers]

Jflowers mentioned our brilliant night last night. What he didn't mention was the "OMG WHAT WAS THAT" wow moment he had - extremely excited he asked me what this "thing" was streaking across the sky really fast.

It was a bird.......

[sanmatt]

Ahh haha for a second I thought he'd seen the fat bright Iridium Flare that went across at 10pm

[stevetynant]

Had a great night out last night with the S Wales guys - great group of astronomers - saw the ring nebula for the first time - just getting a feeling got to make the most ofthese nights now as it didn't get truly dark on the horizon until after midnight.

[pajr777]

I think you might have confused this forum for another one

[Cath]

Had a great night out last night with the S Wales guys - great group of astronomers - saw the ring nebula for the first time - just getting a feeling got to make the most ofthese nights now as it didn't get truly dark on the horizon until after midnight.

Thats a very manly looking group. Wonder whos who in the piccy

[stevetynant]

Appearances can be deceiving Cath - there was also loads of Doughnuts and Choccie buscuits on display lol

From the left

Garethmob,, MJWales, Gannymeade12,LennyLovet,Stevetynant,Mountain View,L8-Nite,Matthew and TexasPete 1973

[Codmate]

Great night last night.

Started at about 1:45 and continued to around 3:30 looking at M3, M13 and Saturn.

M3 took a while to find, and I ended up getting it by flailing around in the right general area with a 32mm EP, rather than with any amazing feat of star-hopping.

The clarity was stunning with seeing very still indeed. Saturn didn't even look too bad at 340X, when normally this is pretty pointless. I just wish I had been at a dark sky site!

[NigelCampbell]

To be fair to John Sales it's an easy mistake to make - clear skies are pretty paranormal. ;-p

[Tinker1947]

The wife was out so all the lights went off, when she returned i put Saturn in the FOV and she said that's very nice, then went to bed, all the light off again so stayed out there until 02:30, not sue but i think it was getting a bit lighter...

[SmokeyJoe]

Just curious how many managed to get some stargazing done last night,unfortunately i was otherwise occupied ge:D:D:Dtting rid of a rather nasty chest infection

Hope you're feeling better.

I got out last night, with my new scope. Never even looked through a scope before.

Found Saturn.

Totally hooked.

:D:D:D

[SmokeyJoe]

Sorry about smilies everywhere tablet's lagging. Need to reboot!

[cotterless45]

Spectacular night,crystal clear with little dew in Middle Earthlands, need more like that,nice.

Nick.

[pgwenlan]

I mamaged an hour or so last night - http://stargazerslounge.com/showthread.php?t=188819 - after weeks (it seems) of poor weather, it was worth it!

[ianaiken]

It was brilliant, observed Saturn and then did some imaging on M13 and M27. Clear until the sun came up, albeit blanket of cloud for an hour at midnight.