A great nights viewing tonight

[tibbs1972]

Last night was good, but tonight it's clear again and Jupiter is up, but best of all, it’s the weekend.

I don't have to worry about work tomorrow.

I've spent the last 2 hours observing Jupiter.

Got a few snaps, need to see if I can process them, but it’s getting late.

I only have a 130mm mirror and a single axis drive, so it's always difficult to catch Jupiter, but I'll persevere.

[mallorcasaint]

I'm still out imaging at the NLO. Just doing the Bubble nebulae and got some good subs of the Heart earlier.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Ive just come in. Was very clear, milky way visible right from the get go. I dont know about other people who being outside really gets my brain going, i think i spent more time sat on the garden bench tonight than actually stood at the scope. I could hear kids shouting and boy racers beeping their horns thinking thats what its all about each night, when im round the corner, sat on a bench at 1.30 drinking a cup of tea (that i managed to overflow my flask lid with).

Looked for Neptune and Uranus tonight, these 2 really elude me. I can say i probably saw Neptune as i was in 100% the correct place but couldnt tell you which it was. The lack of guide stars made me give up on Uranus in the end and the sky got lighter which im putting down to high mist/cloud.

Best part of the night was manually following a plane through the EP for a good 10-15secs, evening see the windows on the cabin lit up. I also managed somehow to doze off for 10mins on the garden bench lol.

[tibbs1972]

I think I'm done for the night.

I've packed up, I managed to get a image of Jupiter and 3 moons, which I've uploaded to the gallery, but I don't think I'll

ever get perfect focus on my 130mm scope.

I think I'm getting better. I realised tonight that it's better to use the camera view finder rather than the LCD screen to focus the scope.

Still learning.

[euphony]

It was clear where I was, but it never seemed to actually get properly dark.

I managed a few of my trusted messiers that I know I can always see, and a couple of new NGC's, but I was disappointed overall (it didn't help that one of the neighbours sons across the road decided to have their bedroom light on until 1am with the curtains open, so that was shining directly over at me wherever I tried to look, I haven't had that before).

Managed to get jupiter and make out a little bit of detail and 3 moons, but it certainly wasn't as clear as when I saw it last weekend.

Had a mini nightmare when i was trying to get back up from being on my knees viewing (still waiting for my observation chair to be delivered!), and as I had to have the scope perched on the edge of the patio and there is a drop down a step and a bit of a grassy slope, my foot slipped and I smacked into the scope, completely messing the allignment up! garrggghh. I had to re-allign it, but it wasn't quite accurate after that, so I suspect that I had knocked it to a position where it wasn't quite level. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, ha ha.

So, overall, a disappointing night for me and I had such high hopes!

I'm pleased someone else managed to get a good one in though

[JBadger]

Ive just come in. Was very clear, milky way visible right from the get go. I dont know about other people who being outside really gets my brain going, i think i spent more time sat on the garden bench tonight than actually stood at the scope. I could hear kids shouting and boy racers beeping their horns thinking thats what its all about each night, when im round the corner, sat on a bench at 1.30 drinking a cup of tea (that i managed to overflow my flask lid with).

Looked for Neptune and Uranus tonight, these 2 really elude me. I can say i probably saw Neptune as i was in 100% the correct place but couldnt tell you which it was. The lack of guide stars made me give up on Uranus in the end and the sky got lighter which im putting down to high mist/cloud.

Best part of the night was manually following a plane through the EP for a good 10-15secs, evening see the windows on the cabin lit up. I also managed somehow to doze off for 10mins on the garden bench lol.

I had a night like that last night: I took the 'scope out because it was clear & I would have felt guilty about 'wasting' a good night. But then only had a quick look at the Andromeda galaxy and the Pleiades before sitting on the bench and just looking up...

[tibbs1972]

Fait play to you, the last few nights have been rare.

I can just make out the Galaxy from my back yard.

You miss a lot if you only use the scope.

I'll have to invest in a Hammock. I'm getting a stiff neck staring up so long three nights in a row.