failure, success, and a little surprise bonus :)

[mashedpotatomountain]

so the clouds finally did part for a while tonight in my neck of the woods

and having missed last night's small window of opportunity after promising to take my girlfriend out for dinner (nearly choking on a venison burger in my hurry to get back outside & see if it was still clear, which it wasn't),

i was not about to waste another chance to see if my recently acquired ES82º eyepieces (8.8mm & 14mm) were worth the money and the wait! i won't get into reviewing them - partly because there's already an excellent

& comprehensive review by stargazer_00 (which swayed me into buying them in the first place) - partly because i didn't get that much chance to stretch them after all - and partly because they probably deserve someone

with a lot more experience than me to review them… but suffice to say that in the short time they were out tonight, they totally blew the socks off the stock 25mm & 10mm that came with my scope. fantastic EPs.

i say the clouds parted, but conditions were far from perfect really - when it's dark here it really is quite dark - but tonight the almost-full moon gave the clear sky a light milky haze which meant my intended target of the supernova in M82

was a complete non-starter! mind you, given the fact that i'm a newcomer to owning a scope and have yet to even see M82 through it let alone the SN means i'm not going to beat myself up too much. hopefully it'll be around long enough

for me to get another opportunity...but on the moon and jupiter, both 8.8mm and 14mm just floored me with their detail, sharpness and contrast. i doubt if i'll ever tire of looking at the moon - even when it's half blinding me, there's just so much to see!

and jupiter - well, to be fair i think i either need to get a barlow or step up to around a 5mm EP to winkle out the real detail, but all the same this was a huge improvement over the stock 10mm - more detail and colour in the bands, and even a first

squinting glimpse of the GRS this put the biggest smile on my face of the night.

no dew problems tonight, but conditions deteriorated noticeably between the hours of 6-9pm, by which time i didn't seem to be able to achieve pinpoint focus at all, and gave up all thoughts of DSOs. and by the time i called it a night at 11.30pm,

the moon was surrounded by a huge halo, with thin hazy cloud obscuring all but a couple of the very brightest stars...

so anyway, reading through tonights posts i think a few of us have had at least some some luck with the cloud at last which is great, and i'm very happy to have been out - even if only to view a couple of the brighter objects for an hour or so...

i've added a couple of pics, nothing exciting but i think it's nice to give people an idea of where you are, it kind of sets the scene when you read a report. my crumbly old house is in the background, and even though i'm all on my own out in the sticks

and have no neighbours, i tend to take the scope just out into the field away from the house and the tall trees in my garden. you might just be able to make out the moon already has a slight haze around it early on, which just got worse over time…

oh and my little surprise bonus?

about 6.30pm, with a still darkening sky, a bright star very low in the south west caught my eye…and quickly noticing that this star was actually moving, i swung the scope round and got it in the telrad - and with the 14mm, managed to find and track

the ISS for the first time ever! i couldn't keep it in view for long, and as it crossed over the speed became more apparent, so i swapped to bins and watched it arc right across the sky…a quick check on stellarium confirmed the time & position for me.

totally chuffed!! i often tune in to the ISS live stream in bed and fall asleep watching the guys up there communicating with the ground - so it was really awesome to see them sliding overhead and imagining the view they might have of us

happy days again!

rich

[Astro Imp]

Great report Rich, I really enjoyed reading this especially your thoughts on the ISS.

Good luck for your future observing.

[mashedpotatomountain]

hey alan thanks a lot for the reply!

not much to report i know, but after all the waiting around it was just good to be outside again...

and on a night when i couldn't seem to find anything, it sure was a treat to see the ISS!

like a little glowing gold brick racing overhead

cheers

rich