An Astronomical Change of Pace

I'm not able to run at the moment, thanks to being stuffed with the achey legs, hot flushes and headaches that indicate the start of a heavy cold. The days have been lovely, but the nights cold and crisp, and even feeling less than a hundred percent as I do, I figured it was time to take advantage of clear skies last night.

As I wrote the other day, the constellations of spring are now beginning to make their presence known in our skies. At midnight, the southern aspect is dominated by Leo, with Jupiter sad shining creamy white by his tail - yes, his tail, I always envisage the celestial lion the other way round from most people - with two moons in binocular view to the west of the planet. Slightly further west, and south, the head of the Hydra is poised to strike.

Hydra is the largest constellation in the sky and fills up the entirety of the southern view as far as below Virgo, but its stars are mainly faint with the exception of the orange second magnitude star Alphard, which can be seen in an otherwise blank area of sky below Leo.

Still high, but beginning to drop down into the west, is Cancer, and I was able to view both of the crab's open clusters in my 10x50s. Messier 67 is dim but faintly resolvable, while Messier 44, "The Beehive" is of course one of the best binocular objects in the sky.

Going back the other way to the east, Arcturus is rising, golden and bright. Join a line to Alpha Canum Venaticorum, sweep half way along it with the binoculars, and there was my first view of Messier 3 for the year, one of the four great Spring globular clusters, Messiers 5, 13 and 92 being the others. It was glowing softly, a fuzzy unresolved circular patch, a faint star sat forever next to it.

Spring of course means the Great Bear and its companion the Hunting Dog are rising high into the sky, and this means its the start of the "La Superba" season. I found it very easily last night so I'm guessing it's near maximum, but as ever, its colour is a soft pink to my eyes and no match for the Garnet Star, Mu Cepheii.

Of course, you don't need any optical aid to enjoy the night sky! Just try and get away from streetlights, and look up.

Si

Comet Lovejoy: Not Dead and Loving it

On noticing the clear sky early evening when I got home, I rushed inside, grabbed the 10x50s - the 16x50s have been officially deemed "useless" for astronomical purposes - and without knowing where the comet would be, or once again whether I'd be able to see it at all, started waving the binoculars around in an unscientific search pattern.

Well alright, it had a bit more aim than that, I'm not an utter dunce. I'd last seen it in Triangulum and could extrapolate roughly where it might be when you join up the (stellar) dots back to the Pleiades and beyond.

I found it smack in the same binocular field as the exquisitely coloured double star gamma andromedae, at one end of the celestial princess. Obviously the secondary is invisible in my optics, but the primary alone makes up for it. I swear it is the only peach coloured star I've ever seen. It is beautiful.

As for the comet, it really hasn't faded much at all since perigee. No chance of a naked eye viewing, but it is still brighter and larger than the Andromeda Galaxy, a handy comparison being not far away. There is less detail apparent, any nucleus is hard to see, and the teardrop shape of early 2015 has now become more rounded. But it is still there, and even from a town garden, very easy to find as an early evening object, with the moon now starting to get out of the way somewhat.

I wish you luck finding it. The moon that wore a snow veil last night is now bright as a lamp, but the comet is very much there, and very much alive.

Si

Comet Lovejoy Meets the Pleiades

Before the approaching storm blew in a mess of cloud to block out the starry sky, I managed to snatch a couple of glances of Comet Lovejoy, now moving rapidly north-east through the sky as it approaches perihelion in a few days time.

It was very easy to find tonight, almost in the same 10x50 field of view as the Pleiades, the glittering star cluster of the seven sisters in Taurus. I have observed the Pleiades many times over the years, and under really dark skies I've been able to see 8 or 9 of them, but tonight, it was the usual six.

One of the Seven Sisters is rather hard to spot from urban locations, in less than perfect skies.

The comet tonight was again less impressive than a few nights ago on account of the cloud, listed magnitude is around 3.9 which would put it as easy naked eye viewing under a dark clear sky, but in Newark tonight, there was neither.

It is still presenting as a teardrop shaped object, with the suggestion of a more condensed inner area, with a more elliptical, fainter outer.

Perhaps a little like a cross section of a malteser type "Revel"!

Si

Binoculars? Who Needs them to Enjoy the Sky?

Most of you will have noticed that when this blog devotes itself to matters nocturnal, my stargazing reports are based around observations with my 10x50 binoculars.

However, with work this morning at 6am, a proper binocular session seemed out of the question. But such a glorious crisp sky, I didn't want to waste. So I just pottered around the garden, looking at the sky between the sycamores whose obstructive leaves will soon fall, and seeing what I could see.

Surprisingly from my town site, I could see plenty.

The Andromeda Spiral was the first thing I chose to look at, and it was just about visible with averted vision. Messier 15 globular in Pegasus, no chance, and I figure than ever seeing a naked eye globular from my garden under clearer colder skies is a no-no. But open clusters are a different matter. The Perseus double cluster was easily visible nearly overhead, to my naked eye, a sort of peanut shaped fuzzy path halfway between Mirfak and Cassiopeia, and seeing it made me wish I could just have a little peek with a small telescope. Not far away, I could pick up Messier 39 in Cygnus too, but this was far fainter.

But enough of that non naked-eye heresy! The Mirfak cluster itself is an interesting sight, never really mentioned as a sight to rival the nearby Hyades, but my favourite orange star amongst all the blue-white ones is invisible to the naked eye almost certainly under all sky conditions.

The v-shaped Hyades are of course the face of Taurus the Bull, with Aldebaran (not Alderaan, Star Wars fans!) representing its baleful orange eye. Above them is an interesting little asterism – perhaps I want to discover my own Kemble's Cascade – a little grouping of mag 5 stars around Mu, Kappa and Omega Tauri. A little further up lies the Pleiades.

The most famous open cluster in the entire night sky, the grouping also known boringly as Messier 45, or more poetically The Seven Sisters, has always brought out my competitive side. Just how many of them could I see these days? Sadly, the answer was only a boring, bog standard seven. I swear when I was fifteen I could see nine or even ten of them. I'm over forty. My eyes must be going...

Luckily, as I headed inside to bed, my eyes weren't so decrepit that I couldn't see the milky way, a river of mist flowing from Cygnus in the West to Auriga to the East. Sad, that many folk now never get to see it with their own, very naked, eyes.

Copyright Creamcrackerednature 06/10/2013

Pimms and Astronomy

As expected, last night offered some decent conditions for backyard astronomy; the milky way could even be seen in Cygnus, a faint shimmer against the urban skies.

With Pimms Number 1 in a very pleasant combination with rasberry and blackberry sparkling water, I took my 10x50s outside at about 1245am, and first up took in the sight of an angry, red-green flashing Antares within the branches of the trees blocking my lower southern aspect. No chance of seeing Messier 4, that's for sure, but Antares itself is always a great sight, the celestial scorpion's angry, unmerciful eye as it chases the virgin across the sky.

Sweeping around, I picked up the Messier 3 and Messier 5 globular clusters - as it turned out viewing conditions were a little hazier than I had first thought - and then strained to find Messier 51 and Messier 81. Messier 51 seems to be visible as a very faint smudge forming an equilateral triangle with two 8th mag stars, but 81 I'm never sure of. Which is odd, as it ought to be easier to spot than the Whirlpool.

I had one target in mind for the night's observing, and picked it up fairly easily. Having seen Messier 71 in Sagitta, I headed NE from there, and was able to pick up Messier 27, the famous Dumbell Planetary Nebula, reasonably easily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbbell_Nebula

I thought I had spotted this the night before, but this will have been the Open Cluster NGC6885 north of the well known "Coathanger" asterism.

I finished off the evening with a sweep through Cygnus, spotting Messier 29 and Messier 39, before heading into the rising world of the west through a stop off at NGC 7243 in Lacerta. I caught my first summer look at the Mirfak and Perseus double clusters. A joy, but a warning of autumn days ahead, sadly.

Cider with Binoculars - astronomy report

Last night was not only a clear one, the moon was out of the way, and atmospheric conditions were good too. I decided to head out with my 10x50s at half past midnight with a bottle of Magners, and see what I should see.

It was probably one of the most rewarding observing sessions I've ever had.

First up, Coma Berenices, looking wonderful in binoulars as always, but sadly not revealing the globular cluster Messier 53 as I'd hoped. The Leo triplet is forever out of reach, and I'm not goping to see any of the Virgo cluster galaxies anytime from my garden, although the starfields in the Virgo bowl are attractive enough in their own right. The globular Messier 3 in Canes Venatici was an easy spot. Later on I picked up Messier 13 and Messier 5, and it is definitely slightly inferior to those two globulars.

I stayed in the vicinity of the Hunting Dogs, and realised that La Superba seemed to be naked eye visible, only, research today reveals I'm looking in the wrong place. Back to the drawing board!

However, first BIG TICK of the night. I found Messier 51, the famous Whirlpool galaxy, for the first time. It seems to form an isoceles triangle with a pair of 6th magnitude stars at 3 o'clock from a line joining Mizar to Alkaid - obviously little detail can be seen, but the fact that I was able to pick it up at all was a thrill.

Struck with my success, I scanned over to Merak and Dubhe, the north star "pointers" of legend, and I think I picked up another faint haze, marking Bode's galaxy, Messier 81, which is apparently absoloutely the furthest object visible with the naked eye. I will confirm this tonight if conditions are good. THRILL number 2.

The final big new spot was Messier 92 over in Hercules, another one to confirm tonight. All these objects are right on the limit from my site, but it's such a reward to be able to find them.

And it's beautiful to be out looking at stars anyway.

Comet Pan-STARRS

Well I saw Comet Pan-STARRS! It really wasn't easy though.

I noticed it was going to be clear enough at 530pm after a day of bright sun interspersed with a huge blizzard mid-afternoon. The thin moon was visible pretty high above the roof tops in my bedroon window, so I figured spotting the comet would be an absolute doozy.

How wrong I was.

I first went outside about 620pm with my 10x50s. The moon seemed pretty high, and I had some great views of that and jupiter, which were the only celestial bodies easily visible at that time. But of the comet, no sign in the section of my garden that had good western views. Damn damn damn! I though, and headed back to my mobile phone for info.

"This will help me spot it!" I said to myself. Wrong wrong wrong!

By 650pm I figured it was below the rooftops, so went into my bedroom, which had a decent western aspect over the old folks home - the residents of which may have thought a maniac with binoculars was spying on them. I wasn't, I was spying in gaps in the purple-black clouds that had rolled in from the North West.

I was getting really frustrated at missing probably my best chance of seeing it, and then suddenly, in between tree branches and skating on a roof top, I was it and wondered how I'd missed it. Brightness is not the problem, it's the size - it is showing a tail maybe 10 minutes of arc or less in my 10x50s, with a faint ion tail too. It was about 9 degrees at 5 o'clock from the moon, and by the time I'd tweeted someone to tell them how to find it, it was gone below the rooftops and into the cloudline too.

But I saw it! A difficult object, and I managed to see it in the middle of town! No matter how brief it was, still a proud astronomy moment for me.

Cocktails and astronomy

It was freezing last night for my first astronomy session in an age last night. So I decided something tropical would help me feel warmer.



 

It has indeed been an age since the weather allowed me to get on with any stargazing, so despite temperatures of minus 3 and a strong desire to crawl under my duvet, I headed outside with my 10x50s to see what I might see. Alas not Comet Pann-STARRS - the sunsets at the moment are pretty, but that is because of the pretty orange and pink thick clouds.

To me, this is always a bad time for binocular astronomy; there's not much in the way of milky way objects to see, and the galaxies of Virgo, currently dominating the southern aspect, are far too faint from my urban skies to see.

I did take the opportunity to find Messier 3, the globular cluster on the borders of Bootes and Canes Venatici halfway betweem Arcturus and Cor Caroli, but was totally unsuccessful in my attempt to see La Superba. It must have passed through my field of view countless times, but I see nothing glowing like a ruby hot coal to confirm its presence. Damn and blast.

Feeling my hands and fingers begin the process of falling off, I turned my 10x50s south, and took in a lovely view of the constellation of Coma Berenices. It's more like an oversized open cluster than a constellatio0n, and although none of its galaxies are visible, it sits there glittering near Leo's back legs, in the manner that legend has it Queen Berenice's hair glittered, impressing the Gods so much they decided to place her shining tresses in the sky.

Get Outside with binoculars for BBC Stargazing 2013!

First up, hello to any new readers who have come to this blog via the BBC Stargazing hashtag! This post is an attempt to draw a few of you into my world, I'll come right out and admit it, and I hope you like what you read.

I like to be outside, and I like to do stuff that doesn't cost much money - it's the Scottish blood. Wildlife and Birds during the day, and the Night Sky after sunset, are all free, and I firmly believe we should enjoy them as much as possible. Without wanting to sound all pious, if a mere, solitary, single person gets to enjoy such things for themselves after reading this blog, then it has done its job.

Nature and stars are good for the soul! That's what I keep telling everyone!

Obviously last night was a bit grim and grey here in the East Midlands, but tonight is clear, if a little hazy. I've just had a little practice observation session with my 10x50 binoculars, and took in a couple of easy, and attractive binocular ojects for you to try out.

First up, I looked at the Mirfak cluster. Mirfak, Alpha Perseii, is the bright, yellowish second mag star leading the constellation of Perseus. With the naked eye, you can see a few of the brighter stars associated with it, but 10x50 binoculars reveal a number of white stars in what is a true grouping rather than a line of sight effect, a kind of halfway house between the Hyades and the Pleides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Persei_Cluster

What nails this cluster for me, however, is the vivid red star of about mag 6, that sticks out like a ruby in a diamond cluster. I've never been able to find anything much out about it, other than it is probably a line of sight interloper, but as with all strongly coloured stars, it fascinates the hell out of me!

Not too far away, and on the lists of Moore's Winter Marathon, is Kemble's Cascade. Virtually overhead at the moment, but slightly tricky to find in the stellar desert known as Camelopardalis, it is an attractive little chance curved line of stars that more or less fills the field of view of my 10x50s. Photographs reveal the glorious mix of coloured stars forming this asterism, but in my experience with it, the colours are hard to see from my town back yard.

http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/5176/kembles-cascade/

Use the stars at each terminal end of the Cassiopeia "W" as pointers to find it.

On a good night, you see the line end at a faint fuzzy patch - this is the star cluster NGC1502 which requires a decent telescope to see properly.

Anyway, a couple of easy objects for you to have a look at! The sky belongs to you, get out there and enjoy it.

Moores Winter Marathon

After horrendous rain that had ruined all of our damn days here, evening brought on a clear weather front (which I got a nice picture of) advancing overhead at sunset and clearing the skies.

Of course I didn't take advantage of this until I got home after a couple of nice pints of Reverend James at The Prince Rupert and had then obtained a small tipple of something or other to keep the cold out.

Tonights main objectives were a couple of objects on Moores Winter Marathon list, and I figured I was in with a good chance as it was cold and clearenough to see Lepus, the hare leaping around his apppointed spot below Orion's feet.

First up, after some shuffling about to get a good sight line amogst the trees was Messier 41 in Canis Major. A bit of help from my wonky Google Sky Maps - it has never worked that well on my phone - I tracked it down as a small but faint patch of nebulosity south of Sirius. I'm never going to have a good view from my garden due to streetlights alas, but it was there.

Shifting back to Sirius, I headed North East as guided by wonky sky maps, and found Messier 50 as a larger and brighter, but still unresolved in my 10x50s, nebulous patch. Neither terribly exciting, but I'm glad I've seen them. Staying in the area, I took in the much more prominent Messier 35 in Gemini, before noticing a dim haze hovering above the rooftop.

Messier 44, The Beehive, is back in business and very good it looked too!

The final thing that caught my eye, was a very orangey red looking star lurking in a vey dim patch of the sky between the Great Bear's paws, and Gemini. Very red 4th mag star. REsearch indicates this could be alpha lyncis. Some sources have this as spectral class K, it's way too red for that surely!

Triangulum Joy

Night before last, all was chilly and clear. Autumn has decided to start suddenly and early, as summer started suddenly and late. I came back from a quiet and short pint at a comfortable hostelry knowing it was a 10x50s night, so I grabbed a drink of sadly unmulled cider and headed outside.

It was a profitable little observation session. I worked my away over from West to East - M15, M71 in pretty little Sagitta, the Fox's curious Coathanger - Messier 39 looking more and more to me (and wrongly) like a miniature Pleides at the end of a long trail of beautifully myriad stars along the back of The Swan before you jump across the see faintly the two NGC clusters at the head of Lacerta the Lizard.

I took in a few coloured stars too, Scheat, the star Elenin is it? In Draco's head? Enif, the Beta and Gamma Andromedae pair. I then had to switch position and scare any awake neighbours, before catching the usual Perseus suspects and the two Cass clusters, and The Pleides for real, and the Hyades. Even in my shaky hands Jupiter's moon Ganymede was visible.

A sure sign  of winter approaching, a couple of the Auriga open clusters were visible, although it was smoggy lower down - can never remember off hand which Auriga cluster is which.

The Andromeda Galaxy was plain, but it was in Triangulum below my special goal lay. Starting at the bright orange star in Aries, I starhopped up to the point of the Triangle before heading off towards two o'clock and the corner of the square of Pegasus.

Sure enough, a surprisingly large but very faint hazy smudge was visible, at this sort of orientation it seemed \\\\\\\\\ - it was the Traingulum spiral, Messier 33. The third main galazy of our local group, and at 3 million light years away, supposedly the furthest object visible with the naked eye.

No chance of seeing it with the naked eye, and looking at how low its surface brightness is compared to Messier 31, I'm amazed you can; but it's the furthest object I've picked up in my 10x50s - I had a look for Messier 81 in Ursa Major and failed, and I've never really picked up Messier 51, so, that record may stand for a while!

Unless I ever go to a deep sky park!

The skies of Leeds

The skies of Leeds? What skies of Leeds?

Sad, but hardly unexpected, is the fact that in the centre of Leeds where my sister lives, in an otherwise great city that appeals very much to me, the only things you can see in the sky are the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. Everything else is dazzled out by a twenty four hour cictyscape, orange hazes, streetlights painting the sky with a murky glow.

Makes me wonder how I would carry out any astronomy at all if I were to move there!

The night skies are about the most beautiful free thing that anyone can see. It seems sad that it is permanently unavilable to some folk, living in flats in city centres; the penalty paid for having easy access to good bars and jobs. It's not great here, but at least I can take a drink out and have some great views of the great beyond.

You see the success of the great dark sky parks in Kielder and Galloway, and wonder if you could have small scale little dark(ish) reserves of city open space where lights can be turned off just to give folk a small chance of seeing the milky way or a few meteors, or the wonderful colour tints of stars I enjoy so much.

"Crime magnets" I suppose some would say, many in fact. Human nature screws us up again?

Red Star dallyings

Had a couple of pleasant night's observings, the low moon not a major hassle but wiping out the slim as paper chance of observing Messier 33 in Triangulum, which is the latest

Messier 15, Messier 31, Messier 39, Messier 34, Perseus Double Cluster, Mirfak Cluster, One of the Cass Clusters, and milky way stars dripping off the obsidian background.

What I have particularly enjoyed looking at in my 10x50s are the various red and orange stars you can see this time of year - Enif and Scheat in Pegasus, Kocab, Alpha Aries, the soft gold Albireo, and harsher orange to be found not far away in the head of the dragon.

The two orange Andromeda stars are a contrast - Beta is a real red head, a stellar Rita Hayworth, whereas Gamma along the way is the lady with auburn hair, a pastel by Renoir I saw in the Burrell in Glasgow and have never forgotten.

The star that interested me the most however lay over in the Mirfak Cluster in Perseus. An interloper, perhaps, compared to the blue white stars around Mirfak itself, but a real deep, near garnet star red cuckoo in the nest, about Mag 5-6. Can't find any kind of name for it, but it's not my imagination, I've seen pictures of it. For once.

I wish I knew it's designation.

Perseids and Alcohol

Hopefully, all being well, tonight will be my fourth night of Perseid watching in a row here in Notts.

The pattern has always been the same. A social drink at the pub along with a read of the lightish but excellent Stuart Maconie book, and then home to what I as always laughably refer to as my garden, get a bottle of cider or a glass of rum and coke, then curse the sycamore tree that hides a big chunk of my western sky as I look up.

Results, well Wednesday saw 7 meteors in about half an hour, at least one of which was a sporadic, and ditto Thursday! Last night, a bright Perseid streaked through Aquila, and then horrible suplhurous yellow clouds rolled in and obscured me completely.

Perseids are not as good a shower as the Geminids at the moment, in my view. The meteors may perhaps be more numerous - debatable - but they are fainter and much faster moving. They are also viewable at more sociable hours.

However, with the Perseids, it's summer, and its nice to be outside, and you can have a drink! And also, revel in the peace and quiet of the dead of night at 2am.

Most of all, I get a big kick of the fact that this is citizen science you can do while tippling, while all the boring people are in bed!

La Superba

Recently I've become obsessed with a star.

This is just as unhealthy as being obsessed with a woman, and likewise takes place mainly at night, after the pubs have shut. But ever since I read about it - and to be honest for some reason this star has not shown up on my radar until very recently, La Superba has become a nightly target for my atronomical observations.

It is a rare C-J spectral class Carbon star in the constellation of Canes Venatici, The Hunting Dogs, that sits beneath the Great Bears Tail not doing a whole lot apart from being faint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Superba

It is said to be the reddest star in the sky, and in my town sky site, rum and coke to hand to keep the cold out, it's a tricky one to find! But find it I have, I think, roughly halfway between Cor Caroli and Megrez.

But it doesn't look very red to me! It looks pink in my 10x50s, I was so gutted! Mu Cepheii, the famous Garnet Star in Cepheus, is far redder, a real bloody ruby of a star. I keep looking at it, and it still looks pink.

Now a pink star is rare enough! But it is not quite what I was hoping for. My explanations are...

1) I'm looking at the wrong star - very possible, knowing me, but it is not a part of the sky rich in stars, I'm pretty sure I've been looking at it.

2) At the moment it's too faint for me to make out much colour in my 10x50s.

3) It's lowish at the moment and the haze and light pollution is ruining the colour.

Any ideas, I'll take them! But to see a star the colour of real blood, not child's wax crayon blood, is something I want to see.

Observing Report

A bit brief, as it is late and I have work tomorrow, but last night, 1230am, was a great little night. After initially getting rather lost, reacquired Messier 13, 5 and 3, the great Globulars of the Northern Hemisphere.

Still no joy in Ophiuchus for the globulars though, although I did pick up IC 4665 and NGC 6632 easily enough.

Lyra revealed to me Messier 57 for the first time! Messier 71 was seen in Sagitta, and the Vulpecula coathanger. Messier 39 looked great, easily resolved, and the stars around Cygnus and Lacerta were glorious in the 10x50s. Picked up two open clusters in Lacerta I think, NGC 7423 and one other.

And then, just rised above the roof, Messier 31. The Andromeda galaxy is back with us.

Ladies and Gentlemen...Mercury!

The words of Captain Kaneda of the Icarus 2 were in my head, the beautiful music of the film Sunshine in my ears, and smack in front of me, floating on the top of a layer of jade green twilight, was planet Mercury.

The fact that given the window related shenanigans I had gone through to see it the night before, the fact I was watching it on my bike ride home from work seemed crazy.

It was about 3 and a half times the distance from Venus to Jupiter, and rather below an imaginary line connecting the two. It was about half a hand span above the horizon - say 8-10 degrees and plain as day, nothing anywhere near it in the sky.

It was a hell of a distraction as I cycled home, luckily it was still there visible through my bedroom window for a short while, sinking towards the cruel all swallowing horizon.

Can't belive I found it so easily after so long, although without the Venus Jupiter conjunction I think I would have struggled. But even at my ok not so collosal age, I'm glad I can still find new things to wonder at.

And I didn't share Kaneda's grim fate after he saw Mercury!

The Scorpion Rises

Was up very early for work as usual - left the house at 0610 to find a spot of indigo-green twilight in the sky (hooray!) and the thinnest slice of a waning moon glowing orange scraping a rooftop.

Virgo and Saturn were visible, but are already starting to set. What I could see, low in the South South West and red as a hot coal, was Antares, Alpha Scorpii, sat viciously beneath his claws. Alas from here, his sting is never visible.

To quote Death in Vegas, "Scorpio Rising". Signs that winter is perhaps on the way out. A sign of a chance to hunt star clusters and the centre of the galaxy low down. Fat chance in he orange smog above the rooftops!

Have just had a little stint with binoculars. Despite the neighbours security light, the starfields of Orion, Monoceros, Gemini and Auriga were beautiful. Had a look for Messier 41 and Messier 50, but low down, and no joy I think. Luckily the sky in this part of the universe is one massive star cluster.

Working for you night and day!

Just rounding up a couple of days of observations!

Couple of nights ago, on a freezing freezing night, did a bit of "post-pub astronomy" with my 10x50s, half moon just about setting, but I think I bit of high altitude haze about. Managed to see M44 Beehive ok, but couldn't get Messier 67 a little further South. My eyes didn't want to work properly! Had a look for Leo and Virgo galaxies, slowly sweeping the skies, but no chance. Had a look for Messier 51 Whirlpool Galaxy in Ursa Major as I had read it can be an easy Binocular object, but no definite sighting. After a few minutes your eyes start to play tricks with you, especially when using averted vision. After a pint.

By this point, my hands were so purple with cold they were all but glowing in the darkness as if black-lit, so I headed inside to bed for a read, a DVD and some fortifying toast with a shot of rum.

I do love my rum. They should sell it with telescopes in winter.

Yesterday, before I went running I had the pleasure of having a really good long look at a Blackcap Warbler in my Holly Tree. Easy as pie from my living room window! THe poor bird, which at a cursory glance resembles a female house sparrow, although perhaps a lighter softer, cleaner grey with a head dipped in a black inkwell, sat shivering on a branch for a good 5 minutes, body fluffed out to reduce it's surface area relative to volume and preserve heat.

It was singing a little, and seemed to perk up after a few minutes rest before heading off. I bet the daft sod was wishing it was a Wood Warbler in Africa...

I note my garden area is not being visited by flocks of Long Tailed Tits at the moment.

Anyway my run was a 8 mile affair past the two lakes - Another Black Headed Gull wearing his Black Head too early on the larger Balderton Lake! I do wonder about this bird, I wonder if it is the same one I saw before.

The mystery bird that didn't seem exactly to be a Great Crested Grebe I reported a couple of days ago wasn't there on London Road lake.

Ran along a frozen, yet still bloody muddy Clay Lane, spotting chaffinches, wrens, great tits and similar in the hedgerows. And a Robin, which I haven't seen as many of in my garden area this winter.

Most interesting sight, apart from the folks doing a spot of rabbitting on Beacon Hill with a whippet and some terrier or other, was three Herons flying high near the castle, in a triangular formation. Slow wing beats, ruling the skies, and curiously reminding me of WW2 German Heinkel 111 bombers.