At last, a clear night!

Clear skies are back!

I spent a very pleasant Saturday afternoon at Carnfunnock Country Park where my astronomy society, the Irish Astronomical Association, were holding a Solar Day. The Sun was somewhat intermittent and hazy but it was possible to see new sunspot 965 on the disc - also a couple of the members had H-alpha 'scopes which gave interesting views although not as - good as is possible with these 'scopes where a really clear sky reveals prominences at the Sun's edge of which there are currently quite a few active.



Later on the skies cleared and the telescope came out - firstly looking at Jupiter and its moons - very low in the sky and somewhat hampered by looking through power lines but still very spectacular - here's a shot I took earlier in the week...



Imaging was made difficult by the almost full Moon casting its glow across the sky but I was able to get a few good ones - mostly I was just happy to look through the scope sighting such gems as Albireo, M13, M81 and 82, the Double Cluster and many others. I also saw numerous meteors though none of them was a Perseid.

Here's M13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules



The Double Cluster in Perseus



A not so great shot of M82, the Cigar Galaxy



M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra



And finally the return of a couple of old friends we haven't seen for a while - Mars and M45, the Pleiades.



It was nice to log on this morning to find that the BBC have used a photo of a double rainbow I took on Thursday evening here...