Blimey, some observing night are just not meant to happen.
I set up in clear skies and was ready to go by 5:00pm. At 5:30 it dark enough to do a goto alignment, set up on Rigel and get it in the finderscope cross hairs, hmmm nothing in the eyepiece.
Then it dawns on me, I replaced a broken cross hair, the finderscope isn't aligned.
Luckily bright double stars are pretty easy to find so after a 20 minute sweep Rigel is found, the finderscope is aligned and the alignment is completed.
It's now 7:00pm, I've had dinner and I'm ready to go, I decide to head over to Omega Centauri to start the evening when the lappy decides to run low on battery power. After shutting down going back inside to find the power lead, put some wood on the fire and pour a glass of wine I'm finally back in action.
It's now 7:45 and the view of Omega Centauri is looking a bit hazy, hmm now what, a quick check of the power pak reveals that it's gone flat thus no power to dew zapper thus one rapidly dewing corrector glass.
Bugger, pour another glass of wine and sit down to contemplate how to get around this problem. No need to worry I look up and
the stars are going out.
It was the scene from Dr Who and Davros where one by one the stars went out over Earth. It was like a giant tarp got pulled across the sky from east to west.
It's now 10:00pm, the scope is packed away, the power pak is charging, I've poured another glass of wine, there's more wood on the fire and I'm now watching Transformers.
Apart from 10 minutes of Omega Cent the night was a bit of non event.
Also with an hour to set up and an hour to pack up it's also a good reason why I really need to build an Obs.
Cheers