First light of 2014

In a first for 2014, the moon via the telescope.

Many firsts in fact.
Setting up the scope before it went dark so everything was ready to go.
Figuring out some trickery with the different barlow lenses and focal reducers that I have.
Learning how to use a new piece of astrophotography software to do some stacking and aligning.
Imaging Jupiter in a half decent way.
Finding out there is a nebula called the Pacman nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia.
However, the moon was just too glorious not to shoot and post.
View it BIG!

I got briefly excited today when two envelopes arrived from the BBC - as it happens, they were returning my forms from the Moore Winter Marathon from last year when I went to Kielder with them all.

Now its time for the sofa. I have done nothing else of any use today but I was so exhausted and down in the dumps yesterday evening that I think maybe a 'nothing' day was what I needed. Thanks for all of the supportive comments yesterday - was briefly in a bad head space. Today, with sleep and rest, that has improved although the other stuff hasnt.