There’s snow on the roads tonight. So rather than take a drive out, I just set up the little 4″ reflector for a quick sky-tour in the car park where I live, which is less than a mile from the city. I don’t know whether the snow on the ground makes it worse for seeing, but it was pretty pathetic out there. The stars were sharp enough, but the Pleiades was only visible as a faint smudge to the eye, and the Orion Nebula not even visible in the scope. It makes me realise that even a five mile drive to escape the main glare of the lights is always worthwhile.
Still, I used the wide-field eyepiece to get a nice view of the Hyades and Pleiades. The Moon is occulting Regulus in an hour, though I doubt it’ll be higher than the buildings around. Damn this snow!
I miss the dark skies and low horizons of Shropshire. Hopefully it’ll be clear next Tuesday for the Wolverhampton Astronomy Society observation session.
I Need my Space 