Can't beat bins.

[bish]

One of these days I'll actually get to use my scope again and post a proper report. Anyway, bins are great when the sky clears too late to wake the house up retrieving the scope and related bits.

I got caught out a few nights ago with no optics at all, and being too cowardly to wake my girfriend just admired how bright Jupiter was and went to bed.

On Saturday I was in a similar situation but had luckily kept my 15x70's to hand just in case. OK, so there were no belts, bands, festoons or GSR to be seen but I could clearly make out Callisto, Ganymede and Europa on one side with Io on the other. A bonus was that Uranus was in the same fov, although I couldn't detect any colour.

M31 was bigger and brighter than I remember, a bright core and faint rugby ball shape visible. Back round to the West I could see Sada Suud, and then almost straight up was M2. The first glance was just a big fuzzy star, but a bit more time and averted vision brought out the globular cluster.

Almost straight down from Sada Suud was Neptune. With Mu Capricorn in view there was a kinked vertical line of 3 fainter stars close by in which Neptune resided. At first I was disappointed as I thought I could only see the 3 stars but not Neptune. Then I realised that the middle star was actually fainter than Neptune which meant I was actually looking at Neptune but first thought it to be one of the 3 stars.

Not a huge haul but from a restricted balcony under street lights with a pair of bins I was happy enough. Anything's better than nothing in my (observing) book.