Spent the new moon just gone under the dark skies of Leyburn at my society's monthly dark sky camp. We had a cloud free night on Saturday night when these sketches were done.
We had to endure reasonable high winds, however I think this had the effect of creating laminar flow and making the seeing spectacular. The transparency was also high with the crepe ring on Saturn clearly visible in my 12.5" dob. Also an experienced observer noted he had never seen M83 in so much detail before - and I would have to agree. Below are attached some sketches made that night at the eyepiece. The spiral arms of M83, NGC2442 (the meat hook in Volans) and structure detail in M65 & 66 was very evident in my dob. I also spent plenty of time with the Eight Burst nebula which was revealing a lot of its shell structure as shown in the sketch. I also had access to a 20" obsession that night, though unfortunately the strong wind was turning it into a sail making any sketching impossible on a ladder
It was certainly nice to surf through the Virgo galaxy cluster though
Also viewed the usual favourites and objects like the Pup (Sirius B), Shapely 1, and W1 Boattini.