Quick sky notes. 04.00 Universal time, looking south.

A lovely view of Orion and Canis Major. Very bad seeing this morning, Sirius was flickering so badly it looked red. I tried to swing it like Dr Bates said, but it still flickered like anything. Oh well. I also saw two planets, which I guessed were Mars and Venus (and I was right, surprisingly!). Venus looked crescent-shaped through binoculars, but it's hard to tell for sure as my binoculars are meant for birdwatching, not skywatching. Aldebaran in Taurus, Canis Minor, Auriga and Gemini were also visible. Nice view of the Pleiades, but it looked like a small blue cloud with my crummy eyes. Argh! another reason I need to see a Bates teacher!

Zoomed in:

Yah, I forgot to get a close-up look of the Hyades, perhaps I'll try again tomorrow morning. But I did have a look at Orion's sword. My binoculars are only 10x32s or something, the crummy roof prisms type, and because the objective lenses are so small M42 (the nebula in Orion's sword) appeared grey, which is a beastly shame, but what do you expect from freebie binocs, eh?

And this is what the Pleiades really look like: