At least I managed to get the telescope out last night but that was about all that happened.  Got it out in the evening when the cloud was starting to break, it didn’t like me trying to complete the alignment procedure using the Solar System align method claiming there was nothing above the horizon, it seems I had put the date in incorrectly, my location had been saved correctly, but the time was way out.  So I’m just about up and running, had a quick look at the Sun, which was disappearing around the corner of the house, didn’t have time for much of a look so went to get the camera mount to get off a quick pic and see if there would be more detail in that.  Camera mount does not mount on my ‘scope, appears to be designed solely for spotting ‘scopes.  So with the Sun moving out of view I had seen during the alignment process that Mercury was in view and I think I heard on the Jodcast that it was going to be somewhere near maximum elongation, wasn’t very optimistic about seeing anything but thought I would take a shot.  The system didn’t like this at all and lost alignment.  I didn’t like this very much either and called it quits for the time being, put a bin bag over it just in case a shower came along and left it for later.

So now it’s much later, gone 1 a.m., and the cloud is fairly well broken and I have a good view of Jupiter to do a single object alignment, check the ‘scope to find the batteries have given up the ghost and as I don’t have 8 AA batteries readily available, that was that for the ‘scope.  It was such a good night though, compared to many recent weekends that I did get out the binoculars just to remind me why I persevere with all this.  Jupiter was in a good position and had a look, could clearly see another object close by but not sure if it was one of the Jovian moons, didn’t seem to move a lot during the time I was viewing it so maybe just a line of sight object.  Had a look at Mizar in The Big Dipper, the binoculars clearly showed it’s companion, though not a true binary, Alcor.  At magnitude +3.99 it is supposed to be a test of good eyesight; Oh dear, even knowing exactly where it was I did not have the slightest hint it was there with the unaided eye.

Been to get 8 rechargeable batteries, Duracel 2650 mAh jobbies and we’ll see what sort of performance they give.