First night of observing.

[art-101]

Got my Olympus 10x50 just a couple of days ago and due to cloudy skies couldn't get out with them.

Finally last night I could.

It was still a little cloudy but I figured if I could see anything twinkling then I was going to get out and take a peek.

Brilliant! I was like a kid at christmas, panning around to see what there was to see.

Hmm, teeny tiny little fuzzy cloud way above my head, or is it.

It's only the flipping Pleiades! My first Messier. I couldn't get over how clear it looked and it only got better as the night went on as the clouds cleared and it just shone so, so brightly.

Go back inside and enthuse to my girlfriend saying that she should go and take a look after standing around for a few minutes to get dark adjusted but strangely that idea didn't appeal since she was getting wrapped up for bed.

I go into the front porch and close the blinds to my side to blank out more light and look out to sea and there was Jupiter coming over the top of my neighbours pitched roof.

Take a chance to look to my right and there's Orion popping over the top of the houses across the road. I can see loads of stars I think.

Pull the binos over my face and holy hell, where did they all come from???

Roll on tonight for another look, got a lump of steel here I reckon i can modify into a bracket to hold my 10x50 and maybe even my phone above that to work as a pushto.

Not that I'm feeling excited or anything.

Got to move out by next Friday though for the building work to get done so back to the middle of town to see lots of orange skies for a few weeks i guess.

Getting a deck chair out from the garage tonight as well. Ouchies my neck.

[mister_wavey]

great stuff!

[laudropb]

Great report. There's nothing quite like your first bino view of the wonders of the night sky. The good news is that there are plenty more " wow " moments to come

[Paul73]

Good call re the deck chair. I still get excited using my bins. The big scope sometimes gets a bit neglected.

Make sure that you hunt out Comet Lovejoy before it fades.

Paul

[art-101]

Good call re the deck chair. I still get excited using my bins. The big scope sometimes gets a bit neglected.

Make sure that you hunt out Comet Lovejoy before it fades.

Paul

Good call on Lovejoy, hopefully the weather holds up and I can check it out tonight.

Failing that I'm going to my local Astro society tomorrow as they are taking a load of scopes down for the public to look through so I'm going to use it like a showroom and find something that suits my needs.

I'm sure there will be someone there keeping an eye on it.