Perseids, Jupiter and Hedgehogs..

It was clouded out in my part of Pembrokeshire last night...so viewing the Perseid Shower seemed to be a non happening event.

I decided to have an early night and hoped for a clearer  Saturday morning..maybe the clouds would part and let me see the Perseid shower in the morning twilight....

The internal astronomer's clock was working well... I awoke at 2.40 am BST and could just glimpse the friendly Moonlight illuminating the window frame...

The clouds must have parted........


Quickly up and out to the observatory, no time to put shoes on....I grabbed my Celestron 8mm plossl from the shed.... into the observatory ...... slide back the roof...

The skies were approximately 90% fast moving cloud, not as good as I hoped, but what gaps there were quickly showed me the Moon... as it slowly melted into my neighbour's ash trees...

Looking eastward I noticed Jupiter high in the sky, the highest I've seen it for many a year.

Seems like Jupiter is going to be the first  port of call for the next few months...

13th August 2011 02:00 gmt ...

Training the Tal onto Jupiter I was able to witness a transit in progress of the Moon Io...something I haven't seen for a few years...

IO Transit

Using my Celestron Xcel 8mm eyepiece, the Tal returned a decent image of Io's shadow. 

But the shadow disc of Io was much more pronounced in my old Skywatcher 150mm refractor...

I should never have sold that scope..oh well  :0(

Throughout the whole observing session I didn't see one Perseid, but then I was only getting about 10% of clear sky view at the most....strangely though, most of the clear gaps were around or near Jupiter...

Perseids, Jupiter and Hedgehogs..

I've mentioned the Perseids, and Jupiter...what about the hedgehogs...?

In our garden these past few years we have had a hedgehog, living we don't know where, but it seems to like the garden enough to stay around.

These last few months our nocturnal neighbour hasn't been seen roaming through the garden.

We had thought that our Jack Russell had scared it away..as she has often stood outside at night shouting at our prickly friend....

But last night whilst in the observatory  I had to go to my shed to fetch a sketching pencil, ...squatting just outside of the observatory was the Hedgehog Astronomer quietly sitting, taking in the scenery..

It was lucky that I didn't stand on our night time companion, especially in my bare feet...!!

Thanks to the moonlight, I was able to see where I was going....

So, no Perseids this year....welcome back to Jupiter...and Hello to Hedgehog Astronomer...