After watching a long film on tv untill 1am the boss took the pooch for a walk and told me that the rain clouds had cleared and that there was a beautiful "red star". Got the 10 x 50s out, looked up and Mars was, indeed, beautiful. Then had a squiz at M36, M37 and M38, then the big diffuse Comet Holmes.
One highlight was, when looking at M37, through the binos, a meteor sped through the field of view.
Had thought of putting the dob out, but with about 15 mm of rain, sanity prevailed. After 3 weeks of clouds and the odd rain squall, the night was absolutely crystal clear with the stars far brighter than I have seen for a longtime.
