We meet on a regular bases at a local country park, 3 miles out side Macclesfield.
Although we are close to this large town. The skies are very dark, often peaking at magnitude +5.2 on good night's.
Last night's observing session was under a Full Hunters Moon. And was organised to co-inside with the opposition of the planet Uranus.
I arrived shortly after 19:30hrs to find the car park busy, with various members setting up equipment or, already observing. The sky was very clear and steady, which came as a pleasant surprise to every body, after the week-long monsoon we've just had.
This was the second outing for my Celestron C9.25, and what a joy it is to use.
Once assembled and the mount aligned on the North-Celestial-Pole. I happily toured the sky using planetarium software.
Because it was full Moon. I decided that I would spend my time looking at some unfamiliar open star clusters. I can't remember which one's I looked at, however I do remember looking at Messier 39.
Through my 24mm Panoptic x61. M39 looked like a jewel in the early autumn sky.
I soon tired off these star clusters and moved onto the ice giant's of the outer solar system.
Neptune. x61. Tiny blue disk. x113 (13mm Baader Hyperion) a slighly larger but still, none de-script blue disk.
Uranus. x61. Larger than Neptune, and appears Green. x113 the planet looks slightly bigger and you can see a tiny green sphere.
Later on, and once the Moon was higher in the South-East. took some DSLR images.
By 1am and after an excellent session. The sky turned gradually to solid cloud. And the few of us who were left, called it a night.
It was an very good start to my 2012/13 observing/imaging season.
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