A balmy night ....

[Ouroboros]

Last night was a balmy night in the warm sense wasn't it!  Not a good night for observing - what with the full moon and all - but a real pleasure none the less.  I was out until well after midnight. No need for coat, gloves or thermals just trackie bottoms, T-shirt and light sweat shirt. Very pleasant.  I had no observing aim in mind - merely the sheer pleasure of getting my ED80 scope out for the first time this season and seeing what I could see. I explored the contellations Lyra, Altair and part of Cygnus. Took in a few doubles: zeta Lyr, epsilon Lyr, Sheliak, Alberio amongst others. I was surprised I could see the ring nebula in Lyra with this scope despite the near full moon. Though just visible through bins, M56 was washed out as was M71 in Sagitta.  Coathanger looked good and I made a mental note to have a go at imaging it with this scope at some point. Then the moon hove into the narrow view I've got in my garden and I spent time looking at that. I haven't used this scope much for observing and I was surprised how good the moon looked despite being nearly full. Lots of detail along the limb that was still in some shadow. I then decided to have a play with my QHY 5-II camera attached to my ED80 to image the moon. I've only ever used it for guiding with a finder scope and never seen what it can do as an imaging camera. I was quite impressed.  Sometimes it's just nice to play and see what things can do. 

[baggywrinkle]

It was still 17C at 21:00 last night. Had a couple of hours in the obsy trying some double stars as the Moon was washing out the grey fuzzies. Very enjoyable and reminded me of being back in Aus...

[Ouroboros]

Yeah. It felt like night time in a warmer country last night.  I was still wearing shorts and T-shirt at 21:00. I then decided it would probably get cold so I came in to put more on, but it didn't really get much colder. Lenses were starting to mist up after midnight though and I hadn't got my hairdryer/dew tubes to hand so I packed in.  If only it could be as warm on those really dark clear nights in mid-winter!! 

[FenlandPaul]

Nice report - we were looking at similar doubles.  I too was impressed with the moon along the terminator yesterday - lots of detail visible although without a neutral density filter it left me with a large yellow blob in my vision for 10 minutes afterwards!

Paul

[Piero]

I know what you mean! When I was in Italy some week ago, I used to observed in t-shirt and shorts without problem at 2.30am! 24C was normal in the night.  

[Paul73]

Warm observing is such a luxury.

It tends to give me a hangover. Proper observe followed by sitting back and absorbing the heavans with a glass of quality red with a pucca cigar ......... repeat for an while....... seems to be getting light ......... Oh.

The odd really stable summer night is surely one of the best experiences in astronomy.

 

Paul

[cotterless45]

Personally , I can't wait to get kitted up in heavy cords,thermals, snow boots and a down jacket. For me keeping warm is easier than keeping cool !

It's the lure of long ice cold nights when even edge of town skies hold so much excitement of winter targets. All that's mainly happened this summer has been milky skies and mozzies !

old Nick.

[alan potts]

Nice report, I too dress with little as it is about 25 degrees at 11.00, but I get eaten by everything around, still at least something finds me tasty.

alan

[chiltonstar]

I remain fully dressed with sleeves and full length jeans even at 25C (I do like hot weather though). Actually, I learnt the hard way last year with a couple of v. painful horsefly bites on my arms, and my wife has just had her 6th visit to the quacks after a tick bite on her leg which left a septic 20mm hole...... Best avoided with a bit of covering.

Chris