My April Observing Highlights!

I have just been thinking about how April has been a great month for observing with lots of cool sky events and personnal goals i have achieved. The sky has been good from here with many clear nights. Infact after going through my observing log book in detail i have found that 23 nights out of 30 have been clear from our location in Maghera. Some of the hightlights for me have been......

1) An EAAS observing night from here.

2) The previous interesting EAAS meeting

3) I have seen 2 displays of the aurora borealis (with lightning flashes)

4) I have seen 2 sundogs

5) I have observed a lunar pillar on 5 different nights ( two of these had a north and a south pillar)

6) Seen one giant 44* lunar haloe as well as many compact rainbow coloured haloes

7) Observed the brightest solar pillar i have ever seen

Now a great naked eye sunspot is visible

9) Seen a dazzling Virginid Fireball

10) Seen a spectacular disintegrating meteor

11) Seen the longest lasting meteor i have ever seen which traversed 110* of sky

12) Did a selection of all night observing sessions centered around the Lyrid meteor shower

13) Did LOTS of lunar, planetary observing and imaging

14) Found 4 new Messier objects (M8, M20, M23, M21) bringing my count to 103 observed Messier objects!

15) Made my first observation of comet 9P/tempel1 which will be on the news big time this summer.

16) I have completed 24 hours and 36 mins of comet hunting this month. Today (May 1st) i have now been searching for comets for 5 years! I first began in May 1st 2000. During this time i have logged 743 hours and 15 mins of searching the night sky. During the search i have counted 2464 telescopic satellites and 202 telescopic meteors.

As you can see it has been a busy and exciting month and i thought i would share it with everyone. Has anyone else had any good highlights to share?

Clear Skies!