A Good Night

[kerrylewis]

Starting with the three planets in the west. Clearer than the previous night due to less murk - now clearly visible to the naked eye. A neat equilateral triangle that just fitted in bins FOV. But I can't really get too excited about these chance alignments although they do look good when visible to the eye and they do let you positively identify Mercury!

Through the scope, Saturn was pretty good and sharp with the Cassini division occasionally clear as the seeing improved.

Despite the sky being not completely dark I managed a few of my other targets before midnight. The Blinking Planetary was surprisingly bright with the O111 filter improving it slightly. M64 visible as a smudge but bright doubles were the best bet- Izar and Porrima looking great. The two Hercules clusters, M13 and M92 looking spectacular as usual.

Tried the Iflare app again for an Iridium flare. Amazingly accurate in time and location - just hold the iPad up and follow the countdown.

Started to get really damp so went to bed just after a small hedgehog scuffled along past my feet.

A good night.

[estwing]

well done,better than mine! I finally got to use the 3-6 nagler zoom in my zeiss....for 10mins! so just focused on Saturn and what a great view it gave at 280x. I did think that the seeing wasn't that bad last night until the cloud bank rolled in..