[venus (Lydia)]

I arrived at the NAS viewing site Cook Park Shortland after viewing had well and truly begun, and with excellent viewing conditions. I felt almost like "Alice in wonderland" except the mirror was a reflector in a telescope! I was transported to much more interesting worlds in deep space with views of Sombrero Galaxy M104 , that looks like a version of Saturn but is really a tightly wound big- hubbed, dust-belted spiral galaxy about 40 million light years away.
Viewing was made all the more interesting as I traveresed my way to Ron's 12" Dob and viewed sights like the "Jewelbox" then on to viewing the "Jewelbox" again ,an open cluster about 7500 light-years with a central red giant which could be closely viewed through Eddie's huge 18". I noticed two faint shooting stars on the night and left just as the waning moon was breaking through the streaky horizon.