A night to remember
The long wait was rewarded yesterday with a clear night, stable amtmosphere and not a drop of dew.
Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is coming closer now and I hope to track it for a longer time on my next session.
A new year
We still didn’t get a clear night since that last great session at the end of November. It seems Europe is in a constant state of cloudiness. I still decided to set up the EAA rig yesterday, despite a full moon, medium to high clouds and horrible seeing.
Galaxy season is around the corner and I spent most of the night looking at the faint smudges around Ursa Major, Coma Berenices, Leo and deep in the night even Virgo. You could probably spend a few lifetimes only observing all the galaxies in just that part of the sky.
Livestacking in such conditions is not really worth it but I still had a go and included a first look at M51.
Mars
After a long six weeks of cloudy nights I could finally take out the Dob again to do some visual. My hope was to have a look at Mars as I missed the planet’s opposition this year due to the aforementioned cloudfest.
Tonight was still not optimal – low clouds all over the place and Mars right next to the near full moon. Still managed to take a picture. Mars is moving away at a fast rate now and I will have to wait till 2025 to hopefully be able to capture it during oppostion.
