So not a bad night after all! My backup binoculars

[adrianelliott]

Had a really bad night last night. Fog, equipment issues (recently moved to drive motors and battery, plus laptop) and got frustrated looking for Leo Triplet. I was seriously thinking of packing up and calling it a night.

I figured that since I was out in relatively dark site anyway, I might as well have a little look around with my binoculars!

Started with the beautiful Pleiades and then went on a little open cluster tour from M35 in Gemini, up to the 3 big Auriga clusters. Then onto Casiopeia and through some lovely little clusters upto the double cluster in Perseus. Finally hit a few random ones like M34, M41 and Beehive.

This really turned by night around, had a great time and made me feel that over the last 6 months, despite bad weather, my knowledge of the sky has really come on as I was finding everything so easily. I also noted that the view of many of these open clusters is better in my bins than my telescope due to the low magnification framing the object better in its surrounding space.

Finally went back to the telscope and as a little victory roll saw what I think was M66 in Leo (well its central core anyway, couldn't resolve much detail).

I intend to go and try Leo triplet again when the constellation is a bit higher in the Sky, but I guess the conclusion of all of this is that there its a really good idea to carry bincoluars in the back of the car as they are a lot easier to use than a scope and can give some really great views!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Glad you had a good night under the stars after all. Bins are great: when everything else packs in, they keep going