Finally, the SDM saw northern skies tonight. I found a place 30 min from Haifa. Still not good - too much passing traffic and local hoons/boy-racers. Was visited by the local constabulary after a couple of hours - someone would have called in "suspicious behaviour" - but they were quickly satisfied. Also dark at that spot meant an SQM reading of 19.8!
Started the night with much cloud. Took me quite a while to work out the bright stars in the gaps. Wonder if I should have done a head stand to work it out - but I got it sorted and the Argo Navis didn't miss a beat after that. SDM is in good shape after all the travels. Restored the Primary to the mirror cell and it needed a bit of collimation. But all good. Clouds cleared after a couple of hours. Readily resolved E and F stars in the Trapezium while it was only some 15 deg up from the horizon. Happy with that.
Polaris is nothing exciting, is it. But I didn't know it was a double.
However, most exciting - check the pic - sorry the phone camera would not focus. The scope is pointed at M31, which I have never seen much above the horizon in Australia! I'm looking forward to darker skies for it alone. I did try to pull NGC 253 out of the murky and rather bright southerly sky, but couldn't do it.
Temperature got down to 12 deg by 10:30pm (Sunset 4:30pm at the moment) - pretty cold for here, given the temperature didn't drop below 25 deg overnight two nights ago!
So far, so good.
