No plan b.

[cotterless45]

Waited for Mars. As soon as it cleared trees there was a view of one ice cap and some dark markings. Reducing the aperture by a third and a moon filter took the glare off. As it climbed the seeing got really bad.

Quite a build up with a tour of memorable Messier's. Quite surprised that from the edge of town to get these. C/21 P looked quite expansive in Cassiopeia . For compressed star clusters with dense star clouds , take a long look at NGC 206, NGC 654 and NGC 559. Once again " Caroline's rose" NGC 7789 filled the view at x90.

Spent ages looking at the open clusters to Cassiopeia. Such a lovely warm and still night to be out under 

clear skies ! Just didn't want to leave the scope until 2,

Nick.

[Stu]

Lovely sketches there Nick. Mars is certainly proving challenging isn’t it, that’s about all I’ve had from it too.

[chiltonstar]

It is looking like we are not going to get much of a view of Mars this time round, isn't it? It was a fairly clear night here but with poorish seeing so I put the 38mm Panaview into the 180 Mak and had a look at some of the lovelies near to Saturn at the moment. These warm Summer nights take some beating!

Chris

[John]

Nice report and sketches as ever Nick

Mars is proving a tough nut to crack this opposition. Luckily there are so many other fine distractions up there

[Mark at Beaufort]

Nice report and sketches Nick. I had both the 12" Dob and the 5" Heritage out last night mainly to hunt down two faint reflection Nebs (NGC 6595 and 6589). They were very low and although I think I might have seen them they disappeared below the fence below I could double check.

Explored the delights of Scutum and Sagittarius and I found a nice cluster within the M24 star cloud - NGC 6603.

I tried to view Mars in both scopes using various EPs but failed to get a stable image. I have yet to see any markings or polar caps in any of my scopes this year.

[wookie1965]

Great sketches as usual I tried the comet last night no show for me with the 8mm in.

[Stub Mandrel]

I love reading your reports Nick.

I did some mars imaging last night, in the live view there were definitely a lot more dark markings visible. Visually a couple of nights before all I saw was a dark patch in the bottom half.