Weds 1 Dec - Short Session, Lovely Night

[MercianDabbler]

A lovely clear night last night. I did not have a huge amount of time available so it was a quick trip out with the ST80 starting at about 9:30PM. No real thought beforehand about targets either so it was a tour of the usual suspects - M42, Pleiades and M31 since it's been some time since I've had any time at all at the eyepiece. My previous hope (last Sunday) turned out to be snowed off quite heavily.

Having completed the initial tour I decided to have another crack at M33 from the back garden, not with much hope of success. This time I decided to star hop from Hamal in Aries via Mothallah in Triangulum. This route worked well - it seems a much more certain star hop than dropping downwards from Mirach in Andromeda. I spent a good long time inspecting the area with several different eyepieces. I could not pick anything up at low magnification and could not 100% remember where the centre was supposed to be. At one point I stuck on the 9mm DeLite and swept across the scene. I think I picked up a hint of a smudge just above the loose ring of stars that I had been looking at. I'm not calling it 'seen' but once back indoors I fired up Stellarium on the laptop. To begin with I could not make head nor tail of the star field but then turned down the limiting magnitude to match the view on the tablet version and then back up to around 9.3 which was a much better match for what I actually saw. The place where I had suspected something in the DeLite was about the right spot.

I finished off by going back via the Pleiades again, using the 15mm SLV which provided a nice view and then to M42 again. This time I put the 9mm DeLite on and concentrated on the Trapezium. As usual three stars were straightforward but I could also make out a fourth when I looked hard. I've not managed four with the ST80 before.

I packed up after just over an hour having a 6AM start the next day. This morning was lovely too with the waning crescent Moon lit by earthshine in a deep blue sky when we left the house at 6:40. At some point overnight we'd also had a light dusting of snow so that added to the scene.

[MercianDabbler]

This evening was clear at sunset too and I spotted Venus while out and about. By the time I was home Jupiter was also visible so I decided to pop out in the garden with the ST80 again for a quick look.

I had to hunt around to find a spot where I could see Venus above the nearby houses but managed to pick it up before it disappeared from view. A very obvious crescent was visible using the 15mm SLV and the 9mm DeLite. After inspecting Venus I noticed that Saturn had also become visible, the three planets making a nice line in the sky so I spent a little while on Saturn and then headed over to Jupiter.

After seeing Jupiter and four moons I noticed a bright light tracking across the sky from the West. I had not checked beforehand but suspected the ISS and decided to try to pick it up in the scope. I switched back down to the 15mm SLV because I doubted that I'd be able to get a moving object into view with more magnification than that. It took a couple of attempts but I managed to get it into view. It was very bright through the scope but seemed to have a sort of 'squashed H' shape to it. I tracked it for perhaps the last 1/3 of its pass across the sky and then packed up and headed indoors for a cuppa. Checking Clear Outside showed that it was indeed the ISS... and also that the latter part of this evening is forecast to be clouded in.

[Epick Crom]

Sounds like you had a magical night of observing. Your report had me conjuring images in my mind of the scenes you saw. Nothing beats our hobby for pure visual beauty! Clear skies to you