And now I’ve forgotten to post through March… which is a shame because it was a huge improvement over February. Not only a big uptick in the quantity of observing opportunities, but lots of variety in my observing diet too. Both this month and the last have started with some Lunar observing. I’m starting to take this increasingly seriously just as the Moon is due to sink lower in my sky until it disappears behind the house until Autumn… still you have to start sometime, and I’ve decided now with the Charles Wood’s Lunar 100.

Since I last posted the rest of February 2017 has happened… there’s not a whole lot more to say than that. Last month wasn’t quite as bad as last June, but it came perilously close for a while. It’s been cloudy and wet most of the time, but I’ve managed to grab a handful of brief sessions with my smaller scopes. The fact that the Moon is lovely and high at this time of year has been helpful, though many of the best opportunities have been around New Moon ironically.

You may remember way back in 2014 I wrote about Charles Messier and his list of comet-like objects. I also mentioned that I’d started tracking them down with binoculars, and that was a while ago, so what’s happened since? I’m still working to my usual leisurely pace, but I’ve collected good observations of 60 of them now. This year would be a great time to finish this project since it’s the 200th anniversary of Charles’ death.

On Monday night I took part in one of my Society’s outreach events for local Cub Scouts. These are a challenge. The Cubs meet around 18:00 and go home to bed before most astronomers would be getting started. It’s a very small window for clear skies in the cloudy and damp UK climate. We aim for around the first quarter Moon since it’s there in the very early evening, it can take light cloud and the kids love to look at the Moon.

As a follow up to the post on starting out observing variable stars I thought I’d talk about my journey. I started variable star observing about four years ago with the naked eye and the 10-Star tutorial. I soon moved on to binocular variables, to which I’ve added a smattering of telescopic Mira variables now. As you can see below, fuelled with enthusiasm soon clocked up 200, receiving a certificate from the AAVSO for my first 100, which was unexpected.

Way back in at the beginning of 2014 I wrote about remote imaging. I know, not very analogue, but my reasoning is that using robotic telescopes wouldn’t cost me valuable observing time under clear night skies.

In this post I want to talk about how this works in practice and whether astro-imaging and astro-photography are really the same thing. I learned a bit about which one interests me the most…

If you’ve read the “about me” page you’ll know that I’m a fan of variable stars. Most of my astronomy colleagues think it’s a bit weird, but I love to test the ability of my eyes to judge brightness and follow the changes in the 30 stars on my regular programme. I now use my naked eye, binoculars and a telescope to observe variables, but I didn’t start that way…

I’ve become a little obsessed with observing this particular supernova remnant. I think it’s because it can show lots of nebulous goodness under less than perfect skies and with less aperture than some: it’s a realistic target.

That said, it’s not straightforward with a light polluted sky, but mid-summer is the best time to try with Cygnus right overhead, and that’s what I do every year.

I’ll admit to being a little late with this post, but I hope you’ll bear with me since this tale was certainly an observing highlight of 2016. Just imagine that it’s August and time to start my annual Veil Nebula hunt…

I guess it’s obvious that I wasn’t blogging much in 2016, but I have been writing for my local astronomy society newsletter which has obviously drained my creative well… that’s my excuse anyway. I have be observing and probably more intensively than ever. Having posted a real article I thought I’d do a round up of my rough and ready observing statistics for 2016. If you haven’t seen 2015’s and feel you need some context then “Observing Patterns” is the place to go.

It was the 8th January 2017. The morning had been lovely with sunshine in place of the predicted fog! It didn’t last. As the afternoon wore on the clouds gathered and by nightfall not only covered the sky but had delivered a persistent drizzle.

So I didn’t expect much when I stuck my head out of the back door at around 22:20 UT. The first thing that struck me was how warm (6°C) it felt despite being dressed in a T-shirt and lightweight fleece pullover. Then I noticed how damp it felt: our local humidity was nearing 100% it seems.

Not expecting much I looked up to the south west and I noticed something bright. The Moon was punching through the rapidly moving clouds well enough to be quite observable!