Wow, what a cracker night.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

After so many months of very poor conditions, tonight is making up for it in spades. What a cracker! The whole Milky Way from Sag to Canis Major (sinking in the west with his tail sticking high ) is simply glowing. Fantastic. I can just make out Sigma Octans above the faint glow of Brisbane, 100 km away. Straight up though, the sky is awash with faint stars. Ya gotta luv a good dark site.

It's a bit cool at around 5deg, but there is not a breathe of wind, and it is bone dry, no dew anywhere except on the grass where even there it is only just enought to leave small spots of water on my hand. The transparency is around 9/10 and even the seeing looks pretty good. (I'm not doing any high magnification stuff so I can't really tell how good, but the guide star is pretty stable in the ol' PhD Guiding screen It's not jumping around like it normally is )

It's nights like this I'm glad I'm an amateur astronomer.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Oh and the only other lights I can see are the odd meteor streaking across the sky, a bit of glow to the east and south (no more than 15deg above the horizon and quite faint) and the reflection on the clock on our oven shining off a window.

[matt]

Not so favourable here at the moment, Paul.

Quite dewy and the seeing looks very ordinary.

I'm staying up though. Possibly all night...again Another week of holidays. Ahhhhh....annual leave...how I love ya!

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

Great stuff isn't it Paul after SO much cloud for the last 5-6 months!



(You know why? The rain and cloud stopped the day I put my weather station up in the backyard - nothing to measure weather wise except warm sunny daytime temps ever since. I guess it's an inverted kind of "new astro gear" thing.)

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Hopefuly it will get better for you Matt. Maybe by the time Jupiter gets up higher it'll look a bit better.

Steve if I'd know about the effect the weather stations are having I'dve bought one months ago

[matt]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Hopefuly it will get better for you Matt. Maybe by the time Jupiter gets up higher it'll look a bit better.

Steve if I'd know about the effect the weather stations are having I'dve bought one months ago

Paul...I'm certainly not judging the seeing by how Jupiter appears in the eyepiece at only 20 degrees!

I'm using Antares...at over 60 degrees. It's in about the same part of the sky as Jupiter will be in a few hours, so I use it to both gauge the seeing and to collimate my 9.25 for the imaging to come.

Antares is a mess at the moment, even at only 230x.

That tells me things are a bit dodgy at the moment. As you say...let's hope it gets a little better here later tonight/this morning.

I'm glad it's looking good at your place, though

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Ah the advantages of wide-field imaging. The seeing can be totally to the pack, but you can still get a respectable image at only 135mm.

[matt]

Indeed...

[Ian Robinson]

Bit hazy here tonight , but just checked , it's cloudless and ......wonders never cease , the nutcase nextdoor forgot to turn on his back light tonight so it is actually dark in my backyard tonight .... shhhh .... don't type too loud Ian , he'll hear it and turn his light back on.

Heading out with the big binos shortly and will enjoy viewing from my backyard for a change ....

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Good luck with it Ian.

[Dennis]

Hi Guys

Well, I had a night off as reportedly, I have been acting, and looking like a zombie after the previous 2 nights chasing Iris (the asteroid, not the neighbour!). Hope you managed to grab lotsa photons.

Cheers

Dennis