It was clear but the moon is on its way up, so I took the refractor out instead of the 12″. Sky conditions were dreadful to say the least – there was drifting cloud, a waxing gibbous moon and the high pressure haze was awful.
Not only that, my refractor’s red dot finder had stopped working, due to me leaving it switched on last time I used it, sometime back in March, so I used it as a rough guide but in all honesty a red dot finder with no working red dot is useless – naturally it doesn’t take sensible batteries such as AA or AAA ones, of which plenty are lying round the house, it takes a crappy little CR2032 flat thing which I had none of until a trip to Tesco this morning.

I did manage to look at a few bright deep sky objects and some double stars. I even looked at the moon (yes, you did read that right!) and that was impressive with my 8mm TeleVue Radian.
I didn’t stay out long as I hate observing in conditions like that – it was so bright I could have read a book out there and the haze was appalling. It was like observing from the middle of London (and I have observed from London – it’s crap!).

Two and a half weeks to TSP (two weeks until I finish work, can’t wait, expecially as I’m planning on not going back to the job, too stressful!). I have been asked to do an afternoon talk on the Thursday, and my topic’s going to be Visual Deep Sky Observing (From a UK Perspective). My friend Robert Reeves is on before me, so between us we’ve practically taken over the Thursday PM session! I’m looking forward to getting there and seeing everyone again. Naturally I hope that we have clear skies both day and night, but the TSP being in June this year, I’m not sure what the local conditions are – more thundery, I think. Whatever the conditions are, I’m up for a good time.