Brief report from Ribblehead Viaduct

[bomberbaz]

So decided to travel a good hour to a really dark site, first time at the ribblehead viaduct. Got there at around civil darkness. Gave me time to align the push to and run a few alignment and collimation checks on named stars and clusters whilst waiting for astronomical darkness, so far so good.

Skies were not settled yet but early doors. However I already had a feeling things were going to be tough, low temperatures but on the exposed moors the temp was 3 degrees lower than on the way in and out of the venue and wind chill. Brrrrrrrrrr.

I will cut to the chase, early on skies being unsettled viewing was tough, I had tried a few tough DSO with the california and rosette, no joy on either so didn't even bother with the flame or horsey. Orion was beautiful as always but it's a given really, bright as it is. Guess I was pushing it on the difficult DSO with the skies still settling. Even the owl wasn't as bright in the OIII filter.

Around nine oclock the wind had dropped a little and the skies looked to be settling, so I decided to leave my nebula viewing and switch to galaxy. Swung round to the markarian chain and there did seem to be a lot more to it than last time I viewed it from a site that definitely wasn't as dark. After checking on stellarium the galaxies appeared to be ranging from 11.8 to 12.25, certainly seeing deeper than before and not that difficult to pick out. 

However it was at this point the wind suddenly picked up again coming in from a north easterly direction, wind chill killed it here. Had a few more looks at other messiers in the markarian area and then binned it. The eyepiece felt like it was going to freeze to my face, really was bitter cold. 

I don't mind cold, but not wind chill, awful. 

In summary, its a place that has great promise with fantastic 360 low horizons but I need to be mindful of the weather with it being so exposed.

[Ciaran Meier]

I'll stick with the cold till my hands don't work, were're a mad bunch !