Promising night

[stufft]

Just returned from what turned out to be a very quick stargazing session.

I came out of work tonight to see clear skies and thought great I can get the telescope out. Got home, had dinner and got my stuff together and drove to a dark site about 20 mins away. Got all set up, aligned the GOTO system and managed to see Andromeda Galaxy, Orion Nebula and a very weird Sirius which appeared to be flashing different colours.

I then heard a weird noise and first thought it was a problem with the telescope mount, I soon realised it was actually rain hitting my jacket and my face and hands were too cold to feel it. All in, I had about 20 minutes of looking skywards and and hour or so spent driving and setting up.

It sucks that I couldn't spend more time with my eye stuck to the EP but I still had a great night.

PS any idea what was going on with Sirius?

[oldfruit]

Hi, sounds like you had a nice session.

Stars twinkle due to turbulence in the atmosphere. Generally speaking stars will seem to twinkle more as you get lower towards the horizon due to the fact that you are looking through more atmosphere. Sirius only rises to about 20 degrees above the horizon in the UK so it is always quite low in the sky and due to this in twinkles madly sometimes, even seeming to show different colours.

Hope this helps.

[stufft]

Thanks for the twinkling explanation, it looked like one of those flashing LED lights you get that change colour.