Stargazing Live - Egham

[Stu]

What a fabulous night! Just got back from the Royal Holloway College in Egham after attending the event there this evening. For once the forecast was bang on, lovely clear skies all evening, seeing was ok, good enough.

I attended with a small group from Walton Astronomy, and had my 106 apo and the big mak together on my newly acquired AYODigi mount. All worked very well, only issue was a slight mis-alignment between scopes which meant constant re-centering of the view but wasn't too painful.

As plenty of other scopes were showing people Jupiter, I just concentrated on the moon, low power x53 in the apo and higher power x200 in the mak. The queue at my scopes was never less than about 10 people and I lost count of the total who had a look. It was amazing to see the reactions, so many 'wows' and 'is that real?' I switched to Jupiter later on when it cleared the trees and was getting some lovely views at x200. Could really see the colour in the belts, and plenty of detail although I didn't get too much eyepiece time!

Really enjoyed the evening, pretty exhausted now having been up at 5.45am (for other reasons) this morning, but all worthwhile. Thanks to the Walton crew, nice to be part of such a great little group.

Anyone else go tonight?

Cheers,

Stu

[Stu]

A couple of photos from last night, setting up before the event. Also a couple of crops of iPhone shots through the mak, not great but something to remember it by.

Cheers,

Stu

[Stu]

Just found this one of the Straight Wall too, not very sharp I know but it was looking very nice visually last night.

Stu

[Rustysplit]

Sounds like you had a grand evening Stu. I did not go but saw it on the beeb. Shame they did not make more of it in the program. Funny you should post the oic of the straight wall, I spent a lot of time looking at last night through my little classic Prinz 550. It was looking really well defined a you say.

[Stu]

Yep, it was a really good night. My head was buzzing for ages afterwards. The only negative of the evening for me, was having to pack down at 10 ish, when the sky was beautifully clear, the seeing was getting better and the mak was working beautifully! Rather frustrating to say the least.

Mustn't grumble though, had some lovely views after the crowds had thinned out. I don't normally see much colour on Jupiter, but last night I was seeing lovely salmon pink tones in the cloud belts and plenty of detail.

Tomorrow night looks promising so will hopefully get an hour or two then.

Stu

[Stu]

Actually, this should probably move to Astro Events?

Stu