Lots of meteor activity last night and it was clear all night long for once (Aug 12-13). The two meteor video cameras captured a total of 166 meteors between dusk and dawn - in some frames there were two meteors! Of these, 54 are identified as Perseids. All these were captured whilst doing other things, such as observing in the observatory, where I would have been oblivious to the events outside were it not for a "ping" from the PC as it detects a meteor. I did go outside for a while to gaze at the sky when I was lucky enough to see a few meteors.

A very clear night last night (Nov 25/26), with a thick frost and -4 deg C in the observatory.

Found a dwarf nova in outburst; it's called SDSS J081610.84+453010.2 (it was discovered as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, hence SDSS). This is a dwarf nova on the Variable Star Section's Recurrent Objects Programme, a list of cataclysmic variables that undergo rare outbursts and hence are interesting to monitor in case they do. See the list here: http://www.britastro.org/vss/rop.html

With the Sun being so low these November days, coupled with variable weather conditions, grabbing a view of our local star is proving a bit tricky at the moment. Fortunately it's been clear around noon both today and yesterday, so I managed to get some decent H_alpha views. I have been rewarded by there being a few prominences and filaments on view.

Attended a bonfire night event yesterday where many families were present. As it was clear, I ended giving an impromptu sky tour. You never know when the opportunity will arise to engage the public in astronomy!

The BAA Weekend took place at Dundee on Sept 9 to 11. A most enjoyable event. We were made welcome by Dundee AS. On the Sunday morning we visited the famous Mills Observatory

Ray Taylor of the NEMETODE network (http://www.nemetode.org/) reports two flashes picked up by his meteor videocams in Yorkshire last night (August 2 at 22.52 UT). Both my cameras picked up the same event. Several reports of a fireball having been seen appear on the Armagh Obsy fireball pages. Outside my field of view, though.