Clearest sky in weeks tonight

All joking aside...........................

Seriously just what the hell is up with the amount of cloud we have had over Ireland since this time last year?

I've NEVER seen so much cloud.


I bought my scope back at the end of Nov..................and i've been able to use it maybe 3-4 times for about an hour each time.

All joking aside...........................

Seriously just what the hell is up with the amount of cloud we have had over Ireland since this time last year?

I've NEVER seen so much cloud.


I bought my scope back at the end of Nov..................and i've been able to use it maybe 3-4 times for about an hour each time.

tell me about it :roll:

i remember in late nov / early december, before i bought the scope, i was out in the garden on numerous nights thinking 'wow - its so clear - theres comet holmes...i must really get a telescope".

since then it hasnt been as clear as those nights. possibly tonight i might get lucky, theres glimpses of blue skies out there today.

Fantastically clear all night last night (27th Jan) a breeze but nothing too bad.

Spent most of the evening from 9.30 on looking at Saturn with a big glass of Tullamore Dew, and had some really good views, mostly through my 9mm Plossl plus 2x barlow 144x. I also tried the 6mm and barlow which gave me 216x and it was much bigger than I had seen before, a little dimmer and harder to focus but several times I got it spot on and it was brilliant. I'm hoping to get a motor focus to aid this.

Tried a few items previously unseen before and after much hunting found M81 & M82 firstly through the 32mm then in 20mm and both galaxies looked great better than M31 I thought. Was really excited to have found these two as on previous occasions I'd had no luck and was a little frustrated.

All in all a great nights viewing

Yeah last night was outstandingly clear, really really nice, through the house window alone with no dark eye adjustment I could still see more stars than on the majority of other nights, constellations that usually seem quite bare were just beaming with light. I had no scope or binoculars but was out in donegal with some extra good skies to make up for it.

Got home from work last night around 10pm and had my tea. Had a few things to do so didn't get out till about 12am but I wasn't worried as the UKMetOffice Sat pics showed clear skies coast to coast. Was disgusted to find that my Scopes Object Locator had stopped working again but with the moon rising it was a bit moot anyway. I spent a while looking at a few open Clusters and Mars and Saturn. Had my best views in ages with Syrtis major visible as a faint darker patch on Mars. Anyway, I was about to pack up when I looked at my watch and it was 2am. I realised that M13 in Hercules would be above my neighbours house at that hour. I hadn't seen this yet. Whipped out my 15x70 Bino's and scanned the area and found a likely candidate fuzzy patch, Found the same patch in the 9x50 Raci Finder and with my 8mm Hyperion, Bingo! Globular Cluster Ahoy!! Very faint with very few stars resolved and quite granular. I'll put that down to its low altitude...over a neighbours roof....deep in hazy skyglow and bright moonglow. Its whetted my apetite for viewing this object in the
Spring and Summer though!! Can't wait!

Hi Keith,
Sounds like a good night, you'll find that then moon tends to was out the clusters fainter details. Mars was excellent last night.