Mad or what?

[NaomiH]

The first clear night since the New Year and the temperature heading down for minus 10 at a rate of knots -- and a perfect, beautiful new moon above the roofs of the houses on the other side of the road.

So there I sit, on the steps to my front door, with my bins on the tripod, and gaze at the beautiful sight, while the traffic speeds past and the people getting off the bus at the stop by our house pause to gawk as they scurry home in the freezing evening air, and the neighbours look out and realize that it's all true about that weird woman in number 145 ...

Until finally my fingers start to freeze to the aluminium tripod legs (why didn't I put gloves on before I slammed the front door )

Well, I don't know if it's a disease, but I'm sure the rest of the world's convinced it's not normal

Now I have to feed the other half, but I've just booted stellarium to see what i can see outside the east-facing back door after I've finished my supper ...

Hope at least some of you have got clear skies too!

Naomi

[RobH]

Sounds great Naomi....chucking it down here in dozy dorset!

Cheers

Rob

[Capricorn]

Answer is both:

Mad!!!:D

and,

What???:D

In these circles sometimes refered to as normal(ish).

[NaomiH]

Sorry about the rain, Rob. It was snowing here (Luxembourg) yesterday (again), probably snowing (again) tomorrow, so I'm just feeling lucky tonight:)

Had as much as I can deal with though, even with the thermal undies, fur-lined boots, etc. etc., so back to the computer to try and work out why I failed to distinguish Vesta, when it should be so easy to find.

On the other hand I did spend quite a lot of time enjoying Praesepe (M44), really clear and sharp, whereas Mars is just a bigger red blob with 10x bins...

Well, maybe I'll go out and have another go when my fingers have come back to life If only I didn't have to turn lights on ( I can't find my red headlight )

Hope your weather improves -- not sure about my sanity (see above)

N

[yeti monster]

I had a nice look at the crescent moon, through the 20x80s as the sky darkened, the earthshine was marvelous and I was able to see features in the darkness of the moon. Luckily, my tripod has foam grips on 2 of the legs, so not bad on the old fingers.

I also took the old Prinz 84mm reflector out for some light, lovely widefield look at M42 using the 40mm EP & trapezium using the 6.5mm, but I'm wary of the tripod being in easy collapse mode, so took it back in and managed, with the 114mm Newt, to get a brief look around about Anlitak (still hunting that horsey, and the seeing started out very good) before the clouds started to roll in. Then I tried to pull Mars in with a 4mm, but had to settle for the 10mm again. Shortly after that the clouds had reached that part of the sky, so everything is back inside, waiting.............

[steviestuboy]

Feeling lucky, thermal undies, all this kinda talk makes me want to go give my scope a right good seeing through!

[NaomiH]

Hope you got some satisfaction!

It's now tipping down here, so I guess that was it for the forecastable future. Only consolation is it's above freezing -- but no sky:(