The Crow Moon and the Appulse.

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Beautifully clear skies last night, probably the best viewing for several months. 

It was a wonderful backdrop to display the appulse of Venus and Jupiter. 

Many astronomical events need no camera or telescope to elicit that sense of cosmic awe, tonight's appulse of the dancing Venus and Jupiter was one of those events.

The frost was much in evidence this morning. The sparrows are really busy out there at the moment collecting what food they can and making a racket. 

Plus the starlings have started to forage for worms, it was only a few days ago that we noticed the blackbird picking up the odd worm in the back garden,  a sure sign that the Lunar month of the Worm and Crow are well under way.

With the Crow Moon in mind I managed to capture a half decent gibbous Moon last night. 

The image was taken afocally with our trusty old S6 phone camera, through my old 60mm Tasco refractor.

With barely 60mm of crown and flint glass to gather the photons, it's amazing what you can see with a simple old "department store" refractor.  

There are countless double stars, the Jovian satellites, craters of the Moon, phases of Venus, star clusters, sunspots,and more. 

The list is long .... definitely material for a future blog post.