Last night was another lovely clear night. It seemed a lot brighter up there last night not sure why? Also Gary could not find M57 but could last time, don't know why either?

Anyway for me it was a mixed night….

On one hand the observing was really great, I found quite a few things I had not seen before and with the dark skies I find it makes star hopping that much easier than in the back garden.

[See table below for comments on targets]

I think that was about all I found in my ‘scope. Did see a few other things with Paul/Gary's scopes. Anyway on to the letdown last night.

I had been hopping to get a decent polar align and try and do some basic imaging with the modded webcam. I got a good polar align in about 5 mins or so and though that was the hard part over! It was a while later that I tried to align the ZS66 with the Newt and I thought I had done it. Popped in the webcam and NOWT! Played about, thought I had it sussed again with an EP in the ZS, so popped back in the Webcam….NOWT!!  Eventually focused on the TV transmitters and found them with the cam. At this point though my power pack died!!!  This imaging malarkey is not easy! Will try again next time………..

Overall though another great night, observing is so much better when you have good company and others that can point out things.  I found a few objects I had not seen before and I got Paul/Gary to check what they though of my collimation when I defocused on a star. Pleased to say they both thought it was fine. For some reason (Maybe the scope was not properly cooled?) it took a couple of hours before I  could get a really sharp focus on bright stars, I have noticed this before and this was the reason for getting them to check the collimination.  Anyway this did sort itself out and I could see diffraction spikes round some bright stars (Also the first time I have seen this). I am thinking of dumping the electric focuser and it does not seem to give fine enough control, what I need is somebody in Edinburgh who can fit a Crayford to my newt!

Still quite jealous of Paul and his dob, he made finding objects with the Telrad very easy and it just looks so much more relaxing that having the EQ mount.  If it were not for me wanting to pursue imaging then I would be selling my kit for a nice Dob! (Paul - My dob for sale soon mate!)

But about 1am it started to get very cold (reading around 2.5c on my car temp gauge) so the fingers were starting to go numb! And we decided to call it a night.  The dew did not bother me last night but at the end the RDF had dewed over a little. 

So to summarise…..

Great company
Great views
Still no Bl..y images!
Oh and no green fireballs tonight either!

Craig Jameson

Thanks to Craig for that report:
My brief comments:
Views of the milky way and the higher constellations were great.
Craig and Gary were there around 9pm but I didnt get there until almost 11pm
The cold and damp were getting to us about 1am so we quit then.
Mars was pretty unimpressive as it was fairly low and bubbling.

Paul Stephen