Return to Rivendell

It is 23:33 GMT and I have arrived back in Spain at Cabrera ( which reminds me of Rivendell in Lord of the Rings for some reason) but have not yet set up the telescope as I decided to wait until I was less tired – not wanting to make any mistakes! Of course that means that the sky is completely clear with brilliant stars and probably has supernovae popping up all over the sky to be discovered by others. From my previous experience it will take a few days to set up the telescope and get the tracking and pointing accuracy that is essential for supernovae searching. I gave a talk last night about SN to the Bolton Astronomical  Society with a few technical issues but otherwise went OK . The sky tonight has no cloud and the only lights are the two walkway lamps which I did not bother to extinguish with my hat technique and the street and house lights from the plain 1000 ft below which do cause a small glow but not significant. Sirius is brilliant to the east of Orion. At the meeting last night we discussed the likelihood of Betelgeuse becoming a supernova as this is regarded as a possibility but it is still there tonight. Strangely when I got home from the meeting last night I watched part of the BBC Stargazing Live astronomy programme that I had recorded and they were discussing the very same possibility !