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Best night so far


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My 20yo daughter came to stay with us this weekend and amazingly last night we had the clearest night for ages. She has never really looked through my telescope before (despite being a self confessed 'geek') but last night she helped me set up Mack from around 10pm. I could already see Mars and Saturn getting lower in the sky but I knew she'd be in for a treat even before it got fully dark.

Mars with a 12mm BST was (as usual) a bright orange disk but you could easily make out some darker features - she looked and gasped - and wanted to know what else was there. We pointed Mack to Saturn - she was hooked. Great ring definition plus moons Titan and Rhea (I think) plus another Enceladus?? A great show - the sky was amazingly clear.

'What else can we look at dad?' Totally hooked. I pointed Mack to Andromeda she was amazed we could see that from the back garden and by now was already remembering stars and constellations to find her way back to it - no doubt to impress her boyfriend at some point. With her at the controls we then went on the handset deep sky tour with her at the helm. 

I haven't had a night where I've been able to use that feature yet so we whizzed through loads. The usual suspects like ring nebular and cigar Galaxy had her impressed but the open clusters were mesmerising to us - especially through the 28mm 2" ep. 

As we were looking up I then realised that the sky was significantly darker than it was last year. We have had most of our village street lights replaced with LEDs. I kid you not I could just make out the Milky Way directly overhead. Truly amazing as previously we had a slight orange glow over most of the sky even at the darkest points. The ISS even gave us a show although we didn't get chance to see it through Mack.

At 12.30 we decided to go in as we're driving up to Durham shortly. But it was an amazingly special night for me just to see how excited someone else can get just looking at the night sky. Best night I've had with this hobby so far!!!

 

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I was listening to a wonderfully calming and nostalgic  song when I started reading this...awesome, awesome story :). Isnt it a wonderful thing to see those close to us enjoy this passion, one I'm sure everyone on here appreciates to no extent :)  clear skies yall.

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14 minutes ago, brrttpaul said:

I took a chance last night and it turned out a lot better than I expected even though clear outside was saying a big no and the weather radar saying a big no

Yeah, I've taken to looking at the forecasts with a pinch of salt nowadays cos the amount of times it's meant to have been cloudy but was actually clear when I looked is more often than not. Vice versa seems to be the case if I drag myself out of bed at 1am...

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Always good to share your passion with others, especially when the enthusiasm is reciprocated. Some one once told me: "It's not what you see through your scope, but what others see through your scope" :D

 

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