Went out to Leyburn for two nights over the weekend (22-23). The skies were clear for both nights, but Friday suffered from some transperecy and seeing issues. There were a few other IIS'ers out there (Westsky, PeterM, allan gould, Robbos30, ...and possibly others I didn't know about). It was a good roll up with about 17 individuals there for at least one of the nights, and most for both nights - a shot of
part of the field is shown below.
I did some sketches and they are below. I haven't included all the stars that were visible through the eyepiece - just enough to frame the nebula. Details : 12.5" F6 Dob, 13mm Nagler (143x), 2B pencil, sketch pad, image scanned and inverted in Irfanview - no other processing
Observed heaps of objects over the two nights, including Comet P4 with a nice tail through a 16" scope. Had some incredible views through Robbos30's 30" dob including the heart of the Orion Nebula that showed heaps of fine whispy detail - particulalry in M43, the Tarantula nebula looked incredibly 3D, and 1566 and 1365 showed great spiral structure too - certainly worth the climb up the ladder!
