Moonlight on the western wall and a touch of blue.

Last week was spent at a friends' smallholding. I had no telescopes, no binoculars and most importantly no streetlights...!

The skies were clear, the Moonlight shone on the west facing wall of our friends' house,  there was no sodium glare to spoil the show..  I recall one evening..... just gone midnight....

I was tired and fast falling asleep, but outside in the dim moonlit night Cassiopeia was shining brightly...  and it was on my mind to capture an image... 

I grabbed the camera, and propped it against the north facing window and took maybe ten shots, all with approximately six seconds of exposure.

As I was half asleep, the lens wasn't in focus, but the image that I post above conveyed the mood of that most wonderful of constellations.

It was great to simply drink in the night sky without the need of objective glass or reflector, plus the total absence of streetlighting was wonderful.

 Yesterday's reflected Sunlight. 

Yesterday I managed a Solar image, but unlike my usual yellow tinted images, this time I added a touch of blue.

Clear Skies.

Maybe Dione, could be Tethys..... definitely Halley's globular.

The clouds rolled in early this evening, bang went my chance of sketching Saturn. or so I thought.

At about 10.00pm UT the clouds moved away to reveal a beautiful night sky.

After training Tal2 onto Saturn I tried out the 25mm plossl, along with the Tal x4 Barlow.. Perfect.

Titan and Rhea stood out really well. 

Just below Rhea, I could make out a third satellite, it was winking in and out of view. either Dione or Tethys, I'm not sure which.

Next time I hope to capture that third satellite properly.

Also Tal2 got it's first look at a globular cluster, namely M13 in the constellation of Hercules.

The Astronomer Edmond Halley is credited with the discovery of this cluster in 1714.

Although.. being that M13 is within naked eye visual range, I guess countless stargazers of ancient times looked up and pondered on that distant speck of light.