For the first time in nearly 2 months the clouds cleared and I was actually able to see stars! It wasn't too cold either, so I took the telescope out and had a look.

My first target was Saturn, and that was as clear as the last time I saw it. I could make out the rings clearly, but didn't see any detail on the rings or the planet itself.

After that I swung around and had a look at Mars. It was about half the size compared with when I saw it last on its close approach around October last year. Again, there wasn't any real detail there.

Next up was the Pleiades (M45), then I had a poke around the constellation Orion. I'd caught a glimpse of the Orion nebula through binoculars a few months back, but it wasn't much more than an indistinct fuzz. Tonight, though, I had a nice view through the telescope. It came up as a blueish-tinged area which became even more obvious when I screwed on the SkyGlow filter. It was a most impressive sight :)

I tried locating a few other Messier objects, but decided to call it quits when it started getting colder outside. Still, it was a successful evening overall.

Oh, and I should point out that the views through my telescope are nothing like those spectacular false-colour Hubble images, or the ones in the links for M45 and M42 above. You need to take some long exposure photos for that, or get a honking big telescope ;)

Now I'd better get back to working on that new story....