Observing in proper dark

I've been away camping for the past week, and despite the usual cloud and rain I always get, I manage to get a couple of gaps during the week and one absolutely clear and stunning night.

The Thursday before going away, I set up to catch an Iridium Flare, and decided to sacrifice pin point stars to get closer to the action, as it were. So instead of using the kit lens at 18mm, I went for 55mm. This meant the stars in the background trailed, but the flare itself nearly filled the FOV, much better image scale.



The night before going away, I managed to catch the moon early on, before the clouds moved in, Jupiter is in the shot too



Over the course of the week, I managed to get a few shots of the moon, although the cloud wasn't being the most helpful.













And one amazing sunrise
.


On Monday 18th, there were a few gaps in the clouds, and I was able to see Jupiter, Arcturus, Deneb and the Moon. I did get the bins out to try and have a look at Jupiter, but in the time it took to mount the bins on the tripod with the bin mount, the cloud gap had closed.

Wednesday 20th, revealed a few larger cloud gaps. I grabbed the bins to see what could be seen. The middle of Perseus was visible, so had a peek at the Mirfak association, had a good look at Jupiter, but either all the moons were hiding or I just couldn't make them out, possibly thin cloud. And around Cassie.

Then on Friday 22nd, after a promising afternoon, the weather pixies decided to be kind and night settled about clear and crisp. As the evening wore in, it became increasingly clear just how good the skies were going to turn out to be. The town above which we were camping, was quite small and therefore doesn't have a large number of streetlamps to mucky up the skies. The Southern aspect looked straight out into the English Channel and the campsite itself, was distinctly lacking in lighting (Gutted I wasn't). So when the lightening of the western sky finally faded my first thought was OH WOW!!!!!. The milky way shone above me like an iridescent bridge across the sky.

I just stood there staring for a few minutes at this amazing sight. I then grabbed the camera, setup on the tripod, and started grabbing some widefield shots. Once this was setup and running I had a further look around, sharing the sights with one of my fellow campers. I was amazed to see Ursa Minor, normally I can only see Polaris, but I definitely saw 5 or 6 of the stars, possibly all 7. After a little time hunting around, I was also able to find M31. At this point I still hadn't got the bins out.

I grabbed the bins and started scanning. I just couldn't get my bearings as there were just so many stars and I wandered around across the heavens just gawping at the sheer numbers of pin points of light above me for some time. I then remembered the other camper and handed the bins over. I directed them to look at the Mirfak Association the double in Perseus and M31. They were quite amazed also at the number of stars. We also took at a look at Jupiter and could clearly see 3 moons. Io to the left, then on the right, Europa and Callisto. I then stole back my bins and spent some few minutes studying the moon. The detail was very sharp, but too fine to be able to pinpoint many of the features.

I then took a look at the Perseus double cluster and had a nose around Cassie. I then had a wander out to Kembles cascade and had a good look around there. I did see a couple of clusters in the area, and checking on Stellarium, I reckon they were IC1808, NGC1027 and IC1848.

I then turned around and had a scan of the southern sky and again just spent some time lost in the sheer scale of it all. I did stumble across the coat hanger, and grabbed some shots of this too.

I then had to turn in as it was getting cold and the lenses were all beginning to mist up. However, I had an absolutely amazing time looking about me and it's renewed my enthusiasm. I really enjoyed that.

Here's the results of the stacks of images I grabbed

Jupiter and the Milky Way



Cygnus



The Coat hanger in the Milky Way



The night of returning from Holiday I was able to catch a Flare, Iridium 80 and a guest