Jupiter
Jupiter has been a feature of cold, clear winter evenings, found high in the south-west as the light has faded. Tonight it was sinking slowly towards the murky western horizon with its retinue of four moons. In the 2" the view was crisp and well defined with some colour and detail apparent on the surface. Using the 10mm and the barlow it was easy to pick out in moments of clear seeing, first the Northern Equitorial band, and then the much dimmer Southern Equatorial band, which is now slowly returning to view after its disappearance last year.
Uranus
Uranus is currently only a few arc-minutes way from Jupiter and is easy to hop to with a telescope. The dim, faintly blue planet showed no detail.
The Orion Nebula
Although Orion was only just appearing above the houses I took a brief look at the nebula. Whilst the low altitude and light pollution knocked out much of the nebula at low zoom, using the barlowed 25mm gave a very satisfactory view; four stars in the Trapezium discernible and bright gas fading to tendrils at the edges. It made me want to get my imaging set-up sorted to try and capture it.
