I’m back again after yet another long break, but honestly I haven’t done anything much astronomy related since my last post in 2020; the only observing I’ve done has been two minor solar eclipses I think. Still, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed the extra sleep that the lack of observing has provided. The reasons for my lack of progress are broadly the same as last time, except that the health issues have taken the headlines.

It’s been a long time hasn’t it, and honestly observational astronomy has taken a back seat. This is a post to fill in what has been happening. Health Health issues with my shoulder and, more importantly last year, with my leg have meant that I couldn’t shift my usual heavy kit. That limited the kind of observing I could do. So it was mostly lunar and double star sight-seeing with small scopes and a manual alt-az mount on a photographic tripod.

I think it’d be a good idea to explain my absence over the last three months, I feel suitably contrite. Summer isn’t a great time for UK observers as the Sun stays in the sky far too long, and never dips all that far below the horizon. Worse yet, as noted in my last post, we’re due a Solar minimum, and frankly the Sun’s been behaving that way. There have been a few interesting spots, but mostly when it was cloudy.