After the earlier excitement at seeing Mercury I aligned the skywatcher, I wanted to get some tracked images of my favourite constellation Orion. It's my favourite probably because it's one of the few that I could identify as a youngster.

Anyway, I was looking around when I noticed that a star just to the right of Orion seemed unusually bright, i.e. I hadn't noticed it before at all as being as bright as that. Next thing my wife was calling me to help with something. When I got back outside my bright star had disappeared.

So, it was a supernova, or more likely a plane or satllite :o(

Got a couple of tracked pics of Orion....



Not brilliant at this resolution but shows quite a lot of detail at full res.

Left the scope outside to hopefully get view of Saturn later

Managed to get outside again for some more clear skies, had another look at Beta Lyra through the MM2 now that I've confirmed what I'm looking at, very nice alternative to Albireo! Lyra is a brilliant little constellation through a small scope or Bin's because all but 2 of its stars are doubles.

Just had my first view of Orion since last Winter, Orion was one of the very few constellations that I could see as a child due to light pollution so is always a welcome sight.

A quick look through the MM2 showed some nebulosity in M42, can't wait to get the Skywatcher on the case, but my back is still playing up!

Also had a peek at another old friend, Aldebaran (the eye of the bull if I remember correctly) and the Hyades open cluster.

Am hoping to stay up to see some of the Leonids meteor shower later as it is still clear at the minute and tomorrow is Saturday so no work!

Later
Mitch

Just looked outside and the sky is clear, so ran outside with the Opticron to get a nice view of the waxing crescent moon, a couple of craters stood out most impressively along the terminator.

The Pleiades are fairly low to my north west and not as impressive as on earlier observations when to the south. Orion is way around to the west and Arcturus is very bright to the East.

Overall seeing conditions are not very impressive though, will try again later.

First clear night in weeks, OK not exactly clear, but I did get a nice glimpse of Saturn which is now high in the south. Orion and Sirius have moved quite a way westward since my last sighting.

Cassiopea was low to the north and the Plough was on its side to the north east.

The crescent moon looked impressive with quite a bit of earthshine lighting the shadow.

That looks like it for now, will check later to see if the cloud has cleared.

Another clear sky!

I had an ISS track forecast for 18:47 tonight from the WSW. So, set up the camera early but noticed the thin crescent moon that I'd missed last night was on show with a nice amount of earth shine lighting the shadow. So took a few heavily bracketted shots of this first.

Then back to the ISS, sure enough it showed right on time, the following images are variations of my second attempt to capture it on "film". This shot was made with a Canon EOS350D using a 35mm SLR equivalent focal length of 28mm, exposure was 24 seconds at f8.0, speed 800 ISO.


Only had chance for one shot, problem is that the stars etc are so faint through the viewfinder, so didn't start the exposure as soon as I could and I wasn't sure if the ISS was out of view. Next time I will try to get more shots in. The photo above is "as is" from the camera.


This version is after adjust levels in photoshop, interesting that you can now see the atmosphere in daylight. The ISS is the long streak crossing Orion. Below is the forecast plot for this pass from heavens-above, I'd say the prediction couldn't have been better!

The predicted track of the ISS is shown by the solid line running right to left with a red arrow near its' beginning. Below is an inverted version of the final image as a comparison to the chart.




This is a cropped version of the same shot, must try to get some observing done while I have the chance.

18:50 - At last, a clear sky!

19:15 - Already spotted the Southern Albireo, and....

19:32 - Just had my first attempt at looking for the ISS based on the predictions from Heavens Above. Right on the money, came out of the southwest and went into the earth's shadow just after it went by Orion, brill. Next time I will get my camera ready and try to get a long exposure to capture its track.

20:00 - Saturn is on view (also saw a satellite skim by as I was looking through the scope)and Orion looks brill, Sirius is quite high in the sky already.

22:20 - Arcturus is beaming brightly through the pollution to my East, wondered what it was so checked all my resources. Very bright indeed, getting a bit cold out there now.