Excellant Night

[valleyman]

properly had my best night seeing last night, Clear skies for several hours, had modded the new dob and the wikey had arrived so was ready to go. using a 40mm EP everything ended up in the EP first time and was able to find some good DSO first time. Best thing for me though was being able to seperate the 3 stars round Caistor with the power of the 200p using a 10mmEP. Also got a faint look at M1 before some high cloud moved in. All in all was a great night

[russ]

That does indeed sound a great night and sounds like you made the best of it. Looking at the weather, should get another tonight.

[NGC 1502]

Yes, at long last I "got out there" again on Sat evening,

after the everlasting clouds here in Essex

Fingers crossed for tonight...............Ed.

[AndyUK]

I'm glad that someone's getting the cloud-free skies...

I have a whole load of "new" kit that's been awaiting "first light" since 9/12 - In fact, I still haven't used ny Synguider in any real anger since I bought it 3(?) months ago. The 4 clear nights we've had since 9/12 I've been either away on business or were over christmas (Astronomy denied!).

I set up c 6pm yesterday evening to see if I could get some Lunar / Jupiter webcam images (as my newly-modded DSLR's currently sitting in the local sorting office) and also to test out some eyepieces and practice balancing the rig. 10 mins after I set up the the clouds rolled in followed 10 mins later by an unforecast shower, so everything was frantically dragged inside again.

30 mins later (having dried everything off), the skies were totally clear again... but I had to take the dog out, during which time the skies looked beautiful. When I got back an hour later the clouds had all moved back in again.

Deciding not to risk it, I took some bino's out instead - We had showers at 2230 and another at 0030 at which time I called it a night. I'm really hoping I'll be able to get out tonight, but having my modded DSLR locked away is REALLY frustrating!

So fingers crossed for clear skies tonight (wherever you may be, but especially if you live near Bath!)

[Note to self - Need a scope cover...]

[Midpoint]

Yes, it was great to finally have a good clear night. According to my Nexstar remote, it was the first time I'd been out with my scope since 23-10-2010!

[spitfire12]

i had an excellent night in leicestershire too, managed to get a good look at saturn, was my first viewing of saturn

and to top it off i saw the most amazing meteor ive ever seen, it was HUGE! it had a trail going all the way across the sky, it was in the sky for a good few seconds, i was mesmorised!

[barkis]

Great to hear you managed a good spell of observation Pat.

Good nights have been so few and far between, and very frustrating. Let's hope for a lot more before we lose the long dark nights.

Ron.