Got back from my first Spring star party on Sunday afternoon having arrived Friday evening. The event was wonderfully cloud free with a lack of aircraft contrails as well; something to do with a volcano in Iceland!
While the skies were clear there was more sky glow than I remember from the autumn event. On the first night there was a lot of moisture in the air with dew dripping off every surface pretty much from nightfall but on the second this didn’t start being a problem until after 2am, by which time I was thinking about bed.
On Friday I had problems getting the AstroTrac to track at all well but this had resolved itself by Saturday and I concentrated on Mars in M44 and M13 in Hercules. 24x 2 minute exposures at ISO400 through the ZenithStar 70.
M13 to follow.