Last night was the best night for observing in a while

[Doasqa]

I’ve been discouraged over the last few weeks. The clouds seem to roll in as soon as night fall comes. If not that there appear to be a thin layer of clouds covering the entire sky only letting the larger objects shine through. Last of all the moisture caused by the vegetation obscures the views. (That’s why the call this area the blue ridge mountains). Several nights the sky was sparkling clear so I set up my gear and ate dinner waiting for nightfall only to go out and find the sky covered with rain clouds. The mountains are so unpredictable. 
 

But last night was unbelievable. I set up like other failed attempts expecting nightfall to bring disappointment.  Wow was I wrong. The crescent moon was simply beautiful. Although the current phase was bright making some objects near it hard to see, the sheer beauty of it made up for things obstructed by its light. Once the moon set and around 10pm andromeda dropped down where I could view it from my back deck. It was awesome in my BT-82 with medium magnification. Orion popped up past my roof and it was an incredible sight with my 10x50 binoculars as well as Pleiades. Normally in my area the constellations can be a challenge to find because you can’t see the stars that make them but last night I could clearly see the Pegasus and a few others. 
 

I think I got my observation fix for the moment. A night like last night makes us for the previous bad nights. I hope you all had a good experience too!

[mdstuart]

I can tell how much you enjoyed that..

Mark

[Doasqa]

8 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

I can tell how much you enjoyed that..

Mark

👍

[Doasqa]

Last night was exceptional again, two nights in a row. The waxing crescent was brighter but I still had great views and the moon looked incredible 40 to about 70x with my Zoom through my Sky Watcher 109ED. I hope some of you had great viewing too.