Moon is up and rising in the East 77% Illumination. Conditions are quite awful. High and not so thin cloud is abundant but, there are patches through which I can observe – I think it’s called ‘Keyhole Astronomy’. Still trying to observe last few Sagittarius objects but the cloud patches weren’t playing ball for anything below 30 degrees above the horizon and other Messier objects still to be ticked off at higher declinations, were…
Observing Session: 17, July
Things this evening were looking a little dodgy, but if I can see the Milky Way through the high thin murk, then I figured it was probably just worth opening up. The Moon is 70% illuminated, but slowly setting. Session Data Date: 17/07/2013Time: 22:11 – 00:23 UTTemp: 14.7c, Air Pressure: 1019Mb, Humidity: 99%, Dew point: 14.5c, Wind Speed: 4.0 MPH . Seeing: I Perfectly Stable, Transparency: Mostly Clear. M24 Can’t really make this out from the…
Observing Session: 11, July
While July is mostly warm and makes for some balmy nights in which to observe, the big downside is that it doesn’t get dark until around 11:30pm. We’ve had a huge high pressure area over us for the last 10 days, but despite a lot of clear nights, I’ve been too pooped to stay up till that late hour and do a couple of hours at the scope. However, last Thursday, I was sufficiently…
Observing Session: 8, June
Despite all the wonderful weather of the last week, most nights have not been good for astronomy. The cloud rolling in after the Sun goes down, being the usual culprit. Tonight was different. Perfect conditions. No wind, excellent transparency and very stable seeing.At this time of year, bagging those objects in Sagittarius is at the very top of of my list. The only problem is that it’s rising behind four trees. Apart from a…
What Scorpion?: Observing Session. 25, May
Well we are back from our weeks holiday in Wales. Apart from the first night we were there, which was clear, but we were too pooped to stay up and observe, the clear night skies did not make an appearance. A pity as I was hoping to play with my new Sabre Alt/Az mount that I had just bought for things like holidays away from the Observatory. However, the Sun God did his thing…
International Astronomy Show Warwick.
Well what can I say but ‘I want one’ although I would need to build a bigger Observatory to get this little puppy in 🙂 It’s been a while since I went to a full blow astronomy exhibition. The last one was Astrofest in London around 2005. While I was just looking for the best Imaging set up within my budget, I wasn’t buying – the problem of getting it all back, would have…