What A Sky Last NIght

[Pig]

I don't know if anyone had good skies last night and managed to venture out but I do not think I have ever seen such a wonderful star studded sky in the UK. I started with this unplanned session using the binoculars and I couldn't believe what I was seeing, the colours of the stars were brilliant.

I didn't want to stop looking because I was completely mesmerised but I just had see what I was seeing through the scope so off I went inside to get it, and to put some more appropriate clothes on as it was really really really cold. You know those very occasional moments in life when you get when one of them " life can't get any better feelings" well when I looked through the eyepiece I got one, I am sure I heard myself squeak too. Fantastic..........

Anyhow the sun is shining here so I am off to get the Quark set up and to catch some of those lovely warm solar rays..... I thought I would just share my happy moment with you

[Stu]

Lovely stuff Shaun. I did venture out last night and it was very nice wasn't it? Two good nights on the trot, whatever next?!

Fancy a bit of solar now myself. Enjoy!

[Pig]

Cheers guys  I have been in Berlin the past week and I did get one clear night whilst there, I did not ice despite being a large city that the light pollution was not bad at all, quite surprising as it goes.

 The clouds have rolled over here a tad so I am going to take Patch for a walk, hopefully the cloud cover will have gone by the time I get back !!!

[brrttpaul]

The wife thinks I,m nuts standing in the garden looking up at the sky (so do my neighbours) I just think no love you sit inside and watch eastenders while i watch a classic

[laudropb]

Lucky you. Total cloud cover here and raining this morning so no solar either.

[Pig]

2 hours ago, brrttpaul said:

The wife thinks I,m nuts standing in the garden looking up at the sky (so do my neighbours) I just think no love you sit inside and watch eastenders while i watch a classic

LoL you can't beat a good episode of EastEnders ..... after all it is the fabric of our existence !!!! has she not explained this to you ?

[Pig]

1 hour ago, laudropb said:

Lucky you. Total cloud cover here and raining this morning so no solar either.

Yes, it can get a little frustrating to say the least but the astronomy friendly weather seems to have picked up a little lately

[tich]

 

Finally it was nice being out & at the darksite Shaun, the last time I were there was end of September for the Lunar eclipse & I haven't seen the rest of the gang for something like a year due to work or bad weather. Mind you when I were driving there the clouds were looking very ominous & you could see the rainfall, even the roads were getting a little wet. I got there & Simon was there but neither of us set up for a bit as it looked like it was going to belt down with rain. But the clouds passed & we had some pretty decent seeing to start with. Unfortunately the seeing turned to mush later on, I never bothered to image anything I just took my Nexstar & 6" SCT to do a spot of observing as I were kinda achy after the first part of the observatory build, still the hardest part is done now so its onwards & upwards from now on. I did however take my new to me modded 1100D to test it out so did some star trails but only 40 of the images were worth using due to the lens fogging up.
Hopefully it won't be to long until the next time we meet up there, maybe see you there too.






 

star trails lightroom.mp4

[DaveS]

Yes, I was out last night. Got 3 hours L data on M101. I chickened out and didn't flip as I had no confidence in being able to re-aquire the target, and it was blummin cold with dew dripping of the 'scope. Managed to glimpse 5-6 stars of UMi, which is pretty good for a Bortle 8 site.

[Saganite]

6 hours ago, Pig said:

I don't know if anyone had good skies last night and managed to venture out but I do not think I have ever seen such a wonderful star studded sky in the UK. I started with this unplanned session using the binoculars and I couldn't believe what I was seeing, the colours of the stars were brilliant.

I didn't want to stop looking because I was completely mesmerised but I just had see what I was seeing through the scope so off I went inside to get it, and to put some more appropriate clothes on as it was really really really cold. You know those very occasional moments in life when you get when one of them " life can't get any better feelings" well when I looked through the eyepiece I got one, I am sure I heard myself squeak too. Fantastic..........

Anyhow the sun is shining here so I am off to get the Quark set up and to catch some of those lovely warm solar rays..... I thought I would just share my happy moment with you

I was out until nearly 4 am this morning Shaun and you are so right. It was glorious, and I walked away from the eyepiece at about 2.30 am to look around with the bins.The great swathe of Milky Way was awesome.The seeing was a bit wobbly ( cheers Nick- I understand that description very well) but I thought the transparency was good ,at least until about 3-15 'ish.

[Paul M]

I was working a night shift and had considered taking the scope to work to get a look at Mars and Saturn. The weather satellite imagery indicated high cirrus moving in in the early hours so I didn't bother.

Good call, the sky deteriorated steadily from dusk onwards but I still got to point out 3 planets to my colleague at 3am. Saturn was really dimmed by the advancing cloud.

These days any night when the stars can be seen are good nights!

[Pig]

Tich, I was on my way out of the door to pop over to the dark site but an old friend turned up at the same time so I ended up observing in the garden, mind you he was very impressed and he may be getting himself a scope soon.

[Saganite]

Well done Shaun, another enLIGHTened person 

[Hawksmoor]

Great sky over Lowestoft. Best night here for weeks. Out to 4.00 am.dawn at 4.30 am. Well the birds started tweeting.  My laptop threw a wobbler so images limited, but did get a clip of Mars as it skimmed my neighbours' roofs. Best views of Jupiter this year, great red spot very clear. Finished the night looking at a few galaxies in Virgo. Now totally  tired but happy!

[Pig]

5 hours ago, Hawksmoor said:

Great sky over Lowestoft. Best night here for weeks. Out to 4.00 am.dawn at 4.30 am. Well the birds started tweeting.  My laptop threw a wobbler so images limited, but did get a clip of Mars as it skimmed my neighbours' roofs. Best views of Jupiter this year, great red spot very clear. Finished the night looking at a few galaxies in Virgo. Now totally  tired but happy!

Getting a good session in really does make up for the not so good times ....... it sounds like you had a great night....excellent stuff

[nightfisher]

I should have set up on friday night as it was the first clear night in ages but i was so darn tired that it did not happen, i really need to get my sleep pattern back on track

[Pig]

4 minutes ago, nightfisher said:

I should have set up on friday night as it was the first clear night in ages but i was so darn tired that it did not happen, i really need to get my sleep pattern back on track

I have found it quite difficult to stay up past midnight lately Jules and I had no real intention of observing on Saturday night but I just happened to go outside with my binoculars .... I am so glad I did as it was almost perfect conditions

[Grotemobile]

http://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/peacehaven/bn10-8/astronomy-weather/327916

My week looks very good according to this. @ the moment it is chucking it down.

[Davesellars]

I missed Saturday night' observing as I was too zonked out from Friday's all nighter which by the sounds of it was similar conditions.  Amazing last night was complete the polar opposite - no clouds but absolutely rubbish couldn't see a thing through the humidity and didn't get at all dark really. Struggled to see mag 4.5 stars which is not a good sign at all.. . Hopefully better tonight and/or Wednesday though as forecast clear...

[chiltonstar]

1 hour ago, Davesellars said:

I missed Saturday night' observing as I was too zonked out from Friday's all nighter which by the sounds of it was similar conditions.  Amazing last night was complete the polar opposite - no clouds but absolutely rubbish couldn't see a thing through the humidity and didn't get at all dark really. Struggled to see mag 4.5 stars which is not a good sign at all.. . Hopefully better tonight and/or Wednesday though as forecast clear...

Bad luck Dave. Surprising really, as I'm only 12 miles or so south of you and it was a very good night, with seeing something like 4/5 - a nice GRS transit, and the sky dark enough for me to get a good haul of galaxies in Virgo with my 180 Mak. The weather must have been very local!

Chris

[Davesellars]

We had some rain until 9 and then all the clouds dissapeared.  I always have to fight off dew being in a low position next to plenty of water, but the issue was higher up I think unless I was sitting in a cloud.  Normally I don't need to stick on the dew heaters for a good hour or more but everything was dripping wet within 30 minutes.  My binoculars succumbed to dew within 20 seconds use...  

 

Most at annoying I had written a full plan on the attack of the Herschel 400 and H2 galaxies in Virgo... Grr

[DaveS]

Blummin' contrails .

BBC and CO says clear, and it would be if it weren't for the aircraft, the whole sky is white with contrails smeared out by high altitute winds.

[Gina]

When I looked up at the sky this morning it was covered in contrails showing flight paths in three directions crossing here   No clouds (for a change) but covered in contrails!!

[DaveS]

Yep, covered in contrails again this morning.

I dunno, we have months of rubbish weather with clouded out nights, then when we do get some clear nights they're ruined by aircraft

Isn't there a nice big volcano in Iceland we can persuade to blow up and stop them for a while ?

[Davesellars]

Yep, last night was ruined by wafts of very high cloud and masses of contrails that refused to budge there was obviously lots of humidity in the atmosphere so it was completely pointless going out for a session for those dim fuzzies.  It did seem a lot cleaner when I woke up around 3am but I just couldn't be bothered by then and astro-dark had finished anyway!  Bit frustrating.  This morning was pretty much the same...  Need some decent winds up there is move it all out of the way.  Didn't seem to much of a problem when it was cold...  I blame this recent warm weather we're having!