The skies cleared up quite well today so I rushed home and set up the telescope in my brothers room to get a few shots of the moon through it. Unfortunately I just could NOT focus it. Later on I headed out round the side of the house where there's no security light and set up my telescope there. It's the one bit of our garden where there's no light, but it's got a really limited view of the sky. Anyway, I managed to get the above shot and a few others. I just attached the camera directly to the telescope, no eyepiece projection or anything. (I don't think my eyepieces are really up to use for projection.)
I managed to get a photo of 17p Holmes, but it took me ages to find it as it was really dim. The last time I looked, which was only a couple of weeks ago, it was really bright and obvious through the telescope. Part of it may have been that the moon's out and not too far away, but I suspect it's getting dimmer anyway, as the dust cloud disperses.
I also got a look at Mars, but the atmosphere wasn't playing along and it was just a rather large blob that wobbled about. It was really low in the sky which is, I think, the worst place for looking at stuff. I had the same problem when I was trying to see Venus earlier in the year.
