3rd January 2025

The evening started really well. There were crystal-clear skies. I tried to capture early pics of Luna and Venus but found Venus really challenging even with a moon filter. I did however get some FANTASTIC shots of the moon by attaching my phone to Dobby.

Taken just using my Pixel 7a

Taken using Pixel 7a attached to spotting scope.

Taken using Pixel 7a attached to Dobbie, using various lenses and maginfications.

These final pics were taken unaided at 7.30pm, just as the sky became hazy. Note the really bad light pollution that I have to contend with every night!

This was zoomed in and edited.

In Addition

I had a viewing session looking East, through the bedroom window.

I did manage some good views of the rich Star fields around Orion and also viewed the nebula.

Finally, I located Mars but the view was disappointing at any magnification.

Finally

I went out onto the West-facing balcony with my binoculars and clearly saw a meteor shooting low across the North-Western sky, shooting down at approximately an 8o'clock angle. I would suspect that it was one of the Quadrantids but I'm not 100% certain. This was the first meteor that I've seen in Stevenage. After this, I set my phone to record 10 minutes but I was only able to get star-trails.

I had high hopes of seeing (and possibly getting a shot of) M31 but the sky had really hazed over. Despite this, today was a very fruitful day, especially the lovely terminator photos that I got.