Monthly archives: January, 2016

Observing Session 16, January

31/01/2016
Astronomy

It’s been a while since I got up at ‘Stupid O’Clock’ to do a bit of observing. But waking at 3am and feeling reasonably alert, a peek through the window confirmed perfect observing conditions and too good an opportunity to miss. Of the three Collinder Clusters I observed this morning, fate chose ones ones with huge 2 to 3 degree diameters, so for once all these had to be observed using the TMB. In…

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Observing Session 7, January

28/01/2016
Astronomy

The first clear night of the year – although for only a couple of hours before the slow moving cloud started to roll in. Despite not having used the scope for two months, mount pointing was pretty accurate – with the first slew-to object only just outside the FOV of the 40mm. However, I wasted most of the session trying to keep the network up long enough to be allow the observing notes for Skytools 3…

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Welcome to 2016

05/01/2016
Astronomy

To put it quite frankly, the weather recently has been crap. Apart from one clear night on the 31st, December, where it looked pretty good until the point we got back from a  New Year’s party, I’ve not had one clear observing night since the end of October 🙁 2015 felt like a disappointing year for observations. The awful weather during the Spring and a rather lack lustre Summer wasn’t looking too promising on…

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