U Geminorum

[Lady Isabella]

Well thanks to the recent poor weather, it looks like I've missed (yet again)

the maximum brightness of the recent outburst of the Cataclysmic variable

U Gem. Last night I tried to make a visual observation but was beaten by

thin high cloud. Instead I took a couple of 30 second shots with a Canon

350D and 102mm f/8 refractor. The results looked awful, very orange etc.

Have run one single exposure shot through Iris software, and been gobsmacked,

for the camera has recorded stars down to magnitude 15.5.

From the image , I've estimated the current brightness of U Gem at mag.13.1.