Stunning Saturn

At last, I managed to put the scope on Saturn before this apparition was over. Simply stunning.

Joy of Spring

I’ve been suffering a bit from workload these past 1.5 years. One of the consequences is not being able to get out with the telescope as much as I used to. However, last Wednesday, a clear dark sky coincided with, well me just saying “sod it” and going stargazing. I am glad I did.

Io shadow transit and some fuzzies.

On 2nd February I actually got out with the telescope. Although the sky didn’t stay clear for long, I did manage to visit a couple of familiar friends, and also captured a shadow transit on Jupiter, which is always exciting.

Kies Pi, the Pleiades and Jupiter

This autumn has not allowed me much time at the telescope. However, I did manage a couple of brief hours in December.

Planetary bonanza

It’s been nearly SEVEN WEEKS since I’ve been out stargazing, but the drought was finally broken last night with a clear sky on a Saturday night. I had hoped to get some deep sky objects as the moon was out of the way, but ended up doing mostly planets.

Gorgeous galaxies and mars maria.

Clear skies the last couple of days have given mixed fortunes. Yesterday transparency was fabulous, but seeing wobbly, whilst the couple of nights before that were the opposite. But between them, I managed to see quite  a lot.

More marvelous mars and some spring galaxies

The last couple of nights were mostly cloudless, moonless, but with curiously poor transparency (including lots of sky glow). Nonetheless I made the best of conditions to look up some galaxies and of course, the red planet.

Mars, secret deep galaxies and clusters

After the weather forecast promised clear skies on Friday, it was cloudy. On Saturday the forecast was for cloud: but it was clear. So out I went.

Io shadow transit, planetary nebulae and clusters

On 15th Jan I had the family out watching Io’s shadow (and Io, but that was too hard to spot) transit across Jupiter’s face. This happened to coincide with a Great Red Spot transit too, though I was the only one to spot that as it quickly went out of view.

Planets, nebulae and clusters.

I’ve got a couple of nights’ stargazing to catch up on. On 12th Jan I was out in imperfect conditions (slight fog and a bright rising moon) looking at secret deep objects.