Observing weekend in Grandpré

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During the weekend of November 5, 2021 to November 7, 2021, VVS Capella organized an observing weekend in Grandpré, France.  The weather prospects were not very good, but when I was driving towards France, more and more gaps in the clouds became visible.  When I arrived, the weather was good enough to set up my Obsession telescope.  Because of the bad weather prospects, a few people cancelled their trip, so we were in a small, but nice company.  

In the beginning of the night, the sky was clear, so I started observing NGC 6543, the Cat's Eye Nebula.  VVS Capella could use a 17mm Televue Ethos eyepiece, and I was very eager to test this.  The view through this eyepiece was really nice.  In the Obsession, the field of view of the Ethos was larger than the field of view of 20mm Nagler, but with a higher magnification.  Before I could move to higher power eyepieces, the clouds started to come in and we had to stop the observations...  The timelapse shows nicely the clouds rolling in.  


Around 2:30, the skies were much clearer again, but there was also a lot of fog.  We decided not to use the larger telescopes, so we observed some deep-sky (M42, M31, M33, ...) objects using the Vixen 20x80 binoculars.  We also enjoyed the beautiful sky with our naked eyes. 

On Saturday, we could follow the presentations of the deep-sky day of the deep-sky section of the VVS.

During the dat, the weather was sunny, but cold.  But when it was dark, it was also totally cloudy.  We could observe twice for about one hour with the Vixen 20x80.  Just when I finished setting uo the 20cm Travel Dobsonian, the whole sky was full with clouds again.  We could see quite some meteors during the few hours we could enjoy the night sky. 

I really enjoyed the nice astronomical and less astronomical conversations and to be under a nice, dark sky again!

Location: 08250 Grandpré, Frankrijk

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