Sugarloaf Friday 17th

flt158 wrote: That's great, Darren. 
You are a true gentleman!

Aubrey. 

Not at all - Just delighted to back under a dark sky with everyone.

Good morning, everyone.

It was great meeting up last night (Saturday) with Paul and Darren.
Although the seeing was plain bad and the sky was less than 50% clear, we had great chats for the hours we were together.
It was fairly windy too.
Darren brought his 10" Dobsonian and Paul had his binoculars. We did manage to stay apart by the mandatory 2 metres. That was easy to achieve even when one gentleman joined us when it was close to midnight.
My William Optics 158 mm performed adequately well as I successfully Izar at 140X. Arcturus was its usual self as it displayed its golden orange colour at 40X.
As Europa had gone behind Jupiter, the giant planet displayed Ganymede, Io and Callisto. The North and South Equatorial Belts were easily seen at 40X and 112X. There was the pleasant sight of a field star close to the north. For the record, its designation was TYC 6310 399 and its magnitude was 9.0.
Saturn's rings were stunning at 40X and 112X. The moons Titan, Rhea and Tethys were very nicely observed too.

At no time did we see Comet Neowise. That part of the northern sky was permanently cloud covered at all times.

Paul and Darren were observing globular star clusters; and I will leave them to share their experiences about these wonderful deep sky objects.

But I have to say it was great to get out of the house for those few hours and catch up on everything.

Until next time, adios from Aubrey.

Good morning, 

Very many thanks for having your car loaded early. If you hadn't last night would not have happened. As you said it was great to be back at the Sugar Loaf again with you and Paul. We certainly made the most of it. It was nice to read over your report this morning as it helped me to relive last night's session - it was great chatting and observing and you have certainly captured the atmosphere. 

While there were plenty of clouds to frustrate us we did get to see some lovely sights. And what a nice start to the night with a flyover by the ISS. In fact we got to see it twice in the one night. The second fly over was 00:05 ISM. 

As some of you know, last night was my first outing with the 10 inch Dob. I was most interested in viewing M13 with it at 00:02. I had it centered in a 2 inch 30mm Plossl. It was bright and rich and I could resolve many stars. For this reason alone the upgrade in aperture was worth every penny. I attempted to sketch it, but the clouds had a different idea! In addition to M13, Saturn and Jupiter were observed. 

Many thanks to Paul and Aubrey for helping me get the most out of the scope last night. 

Clear skies, 
Darren