This was the best night at the Airfield for a long, long time. Transparency was looking exquisite from the drive up! I cannot remember ever having seen such a clear view of the Blue Mountains range from the M4. I could make out individual trees on the furthest reaches. Truly stunning.
Seeing was not the best, 150X as far as things could be taken - it is summer after all, and asking for stable seeing too was just a little too much. But if you worked within that limit, oh, what a view! The Trapezium of M42 was peppered with a swarm of tiny stars. Not something I've seen many times, even with my 17.5". M42 itself was just delicious. Sooo much detail on offer tonight. One of the two sketches I did this session was of M42. The longer I looked the more and more detail became visible. "When's this going to stop!" I was thinking after two hours at the eyepiece.
Morton and Oleg were able to join me this night on such short notice. We were treated to one very special evening. No dew, the softest of breezes, and plenty of pipistrelles to keep the mozzies away,
