Well my prediction of the astronomical observers version of plague and pestilance made on my previous post, has been born out. The weather this Summer has been dire! While the days have been quite nice, as soon as it gets dark, the cloud cover descends. I cannot remember a worse late Spring and early Summer period since I got into this astronomy malarky. The good news is that last Thursday night, I finally completed…
Well that's buggered the weather for a bit…..
There is a tradition at my local astronomy club that when one of us acquires a new piece of kit, that cloud and pestilence will descend upon the rest of us for at least a month. Well I’m afraid that it’s my fault this time, as I have just acquired a new toy 🙂 Having decided I wanted something with a little more aperture and focal length than my TMB, my initial thought was to find a 100mm…
Observing Session: 22, April
With the wind being 5 mph over my 10mph limit – the observatory roof could go airborne over this – and a clear Moonless night, it seemed a shame to miss out on some observing. Having just put the TMB back on the mount and collimated it to the big scope, I decided to take my fairly new 10×60 finder scope off the Losmandy and mount it on the Alt/Az Sabre mount. While a…
Observing Session: 21, April
This evenings session was Galaxies all the way. The nights are now starting to warm up a little and it’s nice to observe wearing just two fleeces now 🙂 Leaving behind the fleece lined trousers and boots as well as the outer jacket and wooly hat, means Winter is now well and truly behind us. I’m hoping I can cram in a a load more observing sessions before that June/July period where it never really get…
Observing Session: 14, April
Another long spell without cloud. Well that’s not exactly true, as there have been a few clear nights in batches. One forecasted and gave cloudless skies, but with a full moon and lots of high thin stuff, i didn’t even bother to venture out. The other a few weeks later didn’t look to bad, but with lots of early morning starts, I’ve not been able to stay awake long enough to do anything useful….
Observing Session: 15, February
I’m not sure how long ago I was up for an observing session before sunrise, but I had another this morning. Squinting through the bedroom window stars were seen so I resisted the urge to roll over and go back to sleep and I hauled myself out of my pit. Session Data Date: 15/02/2015 Time: 04:32 – 06:17 UTSeeing: III Somewhat Stable, Transparency: IV Somewhat Clear, Temp:2.2c, Air Pressure: 989mb, Humidity: 91%, Dew Point: 2.2c, Wind Speed: 5mph, SQM: 19.3 mags/arcsecond, NELM: 5.2mag C4, NGC7025 In…