I Hope It's As Good For You

[TopHouse]

Just come in for a warm, it's freezing out there but the seeing is BRILLIANT! hope it's as good for you lot.

[Chris H]

Good over here in North Wales too, have been checking out the trapezium in M42 and E & F stars are clearly visible at x100 in my 10 inch. I have a new toy so I'm giving it a good work out.

[skye at night]

The sky is deepest black! but I see no stars!

Steve

[MartinB]

Totally naff in Chesterfield

[MikeP]

Ditto in my bit of Sussex.

Mike

[steppenwolf]

Ditto in my bit of Sussex.

Double Ditto ............

[marcdearn]

Rubbish in Leeds ...after a nice twilight and much expectation it is as cloudy as a cloudy thing now.... Boo hoo.....

[mickyjd]

Hopeless in the north east unless you wanna get wet.

[darlingtonskies]

same in Darlo

[Wurzil]

Just had a go with my scope but gave up after an hour delivered me about one minutes worth of Mars (with my new planetary EP:)). Its so frustrating here in north kent- I can see through the gaps in the cloud that the sky is very very transparent and would be amazing for DSOs, but as soon as you start frantically looking for something in a clear area the clouds scud past and ruin it all.

I think a goto/tracking mount would really help in these conditions.

glad youre enjoying it

Warren

[TopHouse]

We had some very fast moving cloud move in at about 11 but it was gone as fast as it came, I've done a first tonight so am really pleased, I got the baader hyperion 8mm last week along with the 2 adjustment rings, got them both on taking it down to 4.3, mars was VERY bright, but on an orange filter and got some detail, we got a pale patch at about 7 oclock area on mars did the mistake of not mentally flipping it upside down so it was only after i realised we'd done the ice cap! I'm really really pleased because as a total noob, I'm at a stage now where each time i get my scope out i make another jump!

[Chris H]

Good work on Mars TopHouse. It was looking good tonight some nice views of the pole and dark patches on the surface. I need to make the effort to do some sketching so I can compare my views with a proper map of Mars and discover what it is I'm seeing. Was V cold though.

[TopHouse]

I'm finding at the moment I'm doing a bit of looking, then coming in for a warm and searching stellarium, like with mars tonight it really helped to zoom in with stellarium and compare what i was seeing, it's brilliant that stellarium even rotates the planets so that what you see is actually what you see, only thing is i keep forgetting it's a mirror image in the scope, hence why at first i didn't think I'd got the icecap, because funnily enough there was a pale section opposite the cap, not AS pale but i thought that's what I'd got until i remembered to mirror it. It just made my night that i actually did get the cap as that's one of the goals with mars i reckon.

[brianb]

OK here till about 11 pm ... don't think cloud is going to clear now, I'll give it another 1/4 hour, check the latest satellite photo for any chance of a hole & if not pack up.

[yeti monster]

03:50 hrs and after seeing a few stars earlier, I've got all wrapped up, just in time to go out and see a nice orange sky, devoid of stella material.

[Beulah]

Yes it was, thanks.

A rare, beautiful, clear night here. I had two sessions, one with a family member, and one much later on in the night.

Delighted to be able to spot the E star in the Trapezium with my 8 inch dob reflector...and had great views of NGC 2024 (Flame Neb)

The Orion Nebula was looking absolutely breathtaking...

It was also grand to explore the galaxy regions in Leo....

Yup - after so many frustrated evenings, a night like this makes up for them all.

Better write a proper report before the day starts and I forget...

[yeti monster]

Things cleared up in time for a good look at Saturn and a fantastic ISS pass this morning. I spent the earlier hours doing maintanence to the kit. I'm starting to be able to sort out which EPs I use most, ready for arranging a case layout.

[glowjet]

Looked out last night and couldn`t believe it, Stars, went inside to collect my binos, maps and other gear, stepped outside and it was raining, I do not know about other folks, but I have had it up to here with this winter, I can remember when my Son was much younger than he is now, weeks of frosts and lovely long clear nights to boot, hey ho happy days.