It’s great news that the the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope continues to go without a hitch. Such a remarkable feat of science and engineering.

Slightly closer to home, there has been another telescope deployment, used in anger for the first time two nights ago (which was the first time since Christmas that we’ve had clear skies in these parts). The DBGS (Dave’s Back Garden ‘Scope) is a magnificent 114mm Newtonian Reflector from Sky-Watcher. It cost roughly one hundred million times less than JWST but admittedly it won’t deliver results quite so impressive. That said, the crescent Moon, Jupiter and the Jovian satellites were a magnificent sight through it, as was the Andromeda Galaxy – although I need to get a bit better at knowing exactly where to point it to find the dimmer objects.

I have a long list of objects to visit next time we have clear skies, although the local light pollution is going to limit what’s possible I think.