Yesterday, as darkness fell, a walk across the heath in the company of the nightjars and the moths.


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Another mad 3am outing into the forest in search of an imaginary comet... I never did get to see it. It was too low to the horizon here, too lost in haze and light pollution.


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I'm a bit under the weather, so just a link today: Noctilucent clouds above Knowlton Church, DorsetI was thinking Knowlton Henge might be a good place to try and photograph the comet. There's too much light pollution near where I live, and Cranborne Chase is an excellent location for dark skies. But it's a fair drive to be making in the middle of ( Read more... )

5.30am. The storm blown over. Ursa Major framed by broken cloud. Two meteors: one yellow with a faint trail, one flash of green.

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It stopped raining. Really, it did. A sky full of stars: whole constellations, not just the occasional faint blurred star glimpsed in a break in the cloud. It's been a while since we had a night sky, and the constellations have moved on towards winter. Leo now high in the south in the mornings. Arcturus very bright, distintly orange, well above the ( Read more... )

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5.30am in the forest. Orion overhead, slowly fading.

Night still in the west. A pale gold moon setting between the pines, not quite full, not quite perfectly round; a clipped coin, and the tawny owls demanding to know who is responsible - Who? Who? Who-who-who-whooooo!Don't ask me, tawny owls. You were the ones guarding the moon. I only just got ( Read more... )