At last - something to write about! Lulin etc.

[ian_d]

Well, it finally happened - a clear night in Gloucestershire, and I wasn't elsewhere. It wasn't perfect - there was a fair amount of moonglow around, it wasn't as transparent as it could have been, and the seeing was decidedly dodgy - but there weren't any clouds in the way. Hooray.

So, what did I get up to? First target was clearly Comet Lulin, which can now lay claim to the honour of being the first object to be viewed through my new Televue eyepiece. Wow. Very impressed with the gear, but more so with the comet itself - pretty bright, competing well with the less-than-ideal conditions and sporting a definite tail running W-E. There was a clear, condensed nucleus and a hint of green about the coma. Nice.

Next up was Saturn, which was skulking around in the vicinity (albeit only just over the rooftops, which again didn't help on the 'steady air' front). Lovely view using the x2 Barlow (around x120 with my 6" f/10 scope) - rings approaching edge-on, and a few satellites in the plane of the rings. Couldn't see any banding on the disk, but as I say it was bouncing around a fair bit.

Then I decided to just cut loose and bag a few Messiers - M51, M44, M65 and M66. Cheated and used GOTO - sorry to all the purists out there! All were nicely visible, although again the moonglow was a bit of an impediment. M44, being a nice, bright star cluster, fared the best - a really immersive view.

So, that was it - a nice session, a little unplanned and random perhaps, but I had got to the stage where I didn't expect to ever see a star again from the UK. Clouds have returned tonight unfortunately, but my habit has been at least somewhat sated for another week or so.

[Sam]

Great night by the sound of it Ian, well done:). I haven't seen Lulin yet.

Sam