The day was lovely with sun shine and warmth. Five members, including myself and one non member join me for the evening as I invited him to come along.
The evening started of great with great food, tea and coffee going around and during our munching a couple on a motor bike stopped to find out what we were up to.
Eventually we all had our gear set up and were waiting for Venus to make her appearance but during that we were displayed with a lovely sun pillar, which I hadn't seen in years.
Eventually Venus was spotted and then Mercury quickly after.
Soon after that it was now dark enough for me to set up my mount and get it polar aligned but I'd been having GOTO accuracy issues due to my polar scope being poorly collimated so I tried to make some adjustments to improve it but in my efforts I made it so much work but allowing a part to fall out. I tried my best to get things up and running but the GOTO just got worse and worse.
I did get a very nice view of Saturn, which tracked very well to for a while, but after that I decided to pack up and just socialise for a while.
On the nice side, word of our presence at Bragan spread across the locals and eventually we have quite a group of people showing up, wanting to see things and asking so many questions. It was a pleasure to talk and show these people their first views of the heavens through a scope.
Another down side is that cloud started to thicken a bit and with the lack of wind it just hung in the sky.
I think it was around midnight when we all begun to pack up. I wasn't happy about leaving early but with no scope to observe with and being under dressed I reluctantly left.
With my mount in dire need or repairs an maintenance this probably means the end of my observing for season...
Below are some pictures of the evening:
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