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The following day was spent with more glorious skies
and solar observing and with the astro imaging sessions running, it really was a relaxed atmosphere
accumulating in an "astro high tea" with everyone on
the common sharing sandwiches, snacks and tea, of
course!
Below: (Image by Alex Speed)
Night was soon around again and with a borrowed power pack I made another attempt at using my scope on the
common and after a few very frustrating false starts I was up and running. A very helpful and much more experienced observer came to my rescue in the form of a 13 year old young lady when my scope was playing up and
without her I would probably have given up after a failed fifth attempt at star alignment! There were lots of beautiful firsts, with views of the Wild Duck Cluster, Owl (ET) Cluster and Alberio. I could not believe how beautiful a
double star could look at the eyepiece...and wondered why I hadn’t attempted to view it before then. Old favourites such as the Double Cluster and Andromeda to name just two were all the more vibrant in the darkest of skies.
More shared views through some great telescopes and fantastic moments such as the excitement when a fellow
astro captured three galaxies in one field of view, will be very difficult to forget! With the Milky Way stretching from
one horizon to another there is so much to take in. A good part of the night was spent sitting in a chair just using
ICY SCIENCE | WINTER 2013- 2014