Day 111 Friday 11th July 2014 Lots of 11's, IC 2944, Murcia to Manchester via France and more cloud when it got dark!
Day 111 in Spain (total) so far this year. I opened my laptop this morning and it said that it was 11:11 am on the 11th - so I had my elevenses! (Columbian Coffee)
I used T13 in Siding Spring to take a 10 minute image of IC 2944.
IC 2944 is also known as Caldwell 100.
After a late afternoon round trip of about 250km to drop my daughter off at San Javier Airport I set up the equipment for the evening. I kept an eye on her plane and watched (intermittently) the entire trip from Spain to Manchester online - its amazing that you can have the aircraft transponder data routed directly to your laptop!
Shortly after take off from Murcia San Javier Airport
LS 864 flew directly over our old French house (La Brosse) in the village of La Boissiere in La Mayenne Department! Small world! It was however at 38000 feet!
Sunset from LS 864 en route - is that plane flying South??
La Brosse 10000 sq m farm and barns
Almost back to Manchester about to turn and fly over Stockport to the runway.
It was a poor night for astronomy - mist and cloud were all around - even below me looking down from my mountain top location Cabrera and Turre began to disappear. The last session involved an adjustment of the mount to refine polar alignment. Tonight I homed the mount and slewed to Mars - I centred it and mapped the point then slewed to Saturn and mapped that also. I had to give up at that point. Cloud descended!