With the Moon getting fatter each night (full Moon is on 3rd June) and the nights getting shorter, it’s time to pack the scope away until mid-late July. Last night, 23rd May, we had an hour and a half of true darkness and, by 21st June, this will be down to no true darkness. Astronomical darkness will return in mid to late July.

I did attempt some observing last night but it was so murky – the weather has dramatically improved with daytime temperatures of 84°F/29°C and bright sunshine but the haze is atrocious! – I gave up. I had a list of galaxies in Bootes to look at but I could only find one, and even then it was faint, and the stars all had haloes around them.

Time to turn my attention towards different things over the summer. I’m off on a trip on the P&O cruise ship Oriana (a friend is going on that cruise but the friend who was going with her dropped out so she asked if I’d like to go) in July; nowhere exotic just Amsterdam, NL, and Zeebrugge in Belgium, but it’ll be a bit of fun. I’m planning to do some photography over the summer, ships, birds, insects…anything that catches my eye, to kill time until the observing season starts again. And not to mention all the observations I have yet to type up.