Osbourne One-Nil

With the Moon about you're going to find it difficult as with the longer exposure you're just going to increase the amount of Moon glow you capture. ISO6400 might capture fainter stars but it also captures more noise, so you don't really gain much. I'd knock the ISO down to about 400, and then perhaps take lots of 20 second exposures. You can then "stack" them (you'll have to Google for some more info on this) which sort of draws out detail that can't be seen in any one individual photo. Without some means of tracking, I suspect that's your best bet. Here's a 1sec exposure I took at ISO6400 to check focus, but there was no Moon and my skies are very dark.

I have a lovely old cast iron cattle trough at home, which I currently have next to my shed and has Hostas and ferns in, but it's getting a bit tired, and I'd love to make it into somewhere for the spawn my kids collect each year to develop. It's about 2ft deep, 2ft across and 4ft wide. It's in permanent shade, but I don't see that being a problem. We currently have a "pond" in the far corner of the garden near the beck, but it's underneath a Scots Pine which drops a lot of needles in, and in the summer, can be in full sun for hours on end (in theory, as that never happens here). My only concern is, does the cast iron cause any problems with the water quality or would I be best lining it first? I'd get the water from the beck where the spawn is collected anyway.

Seems the snow in the Lille area caused severe probems for the Eurostar, but luckily not my particular train.

You might find this website useful? http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/ASE_20120520_pg01.html

By the time I left Lille this morning there was 4" level snow in the city centre and still snowing very heavily. The train was still on time to the second though! It quickly turned to rain as we approached the tunnel though.

It was snowing in Great Asby yesterday, apparently, and it's definitely snowing here in Lille this morning, with it settling even in the city centre.

I suspect your photos are just showing either an out of focus disc or what's called pixel oversampling. Venus is well nigh impossible to photograph and would be displaying a half phase as the Moon does. It would be possible to distinguish a disc of Jupiter with a long enough lens, but you'd need at least 300mm I'd have thought. As for Mars, well that's tiny even through a telescope at relatively high power. Right, I'm off to steal some kid's pocket money.

No zoom lens on them, just a plain old 50mm lens!

Here are the first shots with my new DSLR (Canon 1100 which turns out to be more suitable than the much more expensive 600D or even 60D). Used a prime focus 50mm lens too, and both were taken at ISO400 for 5 minutes. Completely unprocessed - just as they came off the memory card. Can't wait to use the RAW files and try stacking multiple images.

I'm sick of this - if you're going to start a thread, please don't then subsequently delete the majority of your own contributions in it.

The upper reaches of the Eden valley are capable of real deep cold, but also, being well inland, able to get relatively warm in the summer. Quite unlike the Lakes or western Cumbria.

Them bloody southerners with their fancy cars and posh wine - if they want our water they should pay for it. When I was a boy....

Good old infrastructure project could be just what this country needs. They could bung the National Grid underground at the same time if they thought about it, and lay lots of lovely fibre optics too.

Just to let you know that with the onset of drought and the total absence of anything approaching cold weather, it's time to bring back the larger regional threads:- Scotland Wales Ireland North of England Midlands East Anglia and the South East Central Southern & South West England. This will happen as soon as it gets done...might even be today!

Locally very wet here yesterday anyway, with just shy of 30mm of rain falling in Great Asby whilst in Appleby, just five miles away, less than 2mm fell. Squeezed 137mm of rain out so far this year which is half what we had to this time last year, but double what we'd had by this time two years ago.

Actually, that's not strictly true as the Appleby station hasn't updated since Saturday (I shall have words) but I was told by the station's owner that Appleby had received 2mm of rain yesterday whereas I'd received just short of 30mm. Not a bad difference for 5 miles!

29.2mm of rain, 58mph wind and a top temperature of 9.8º. Brill.

There's a woman a few doors away from me in Appleby who gets many visitors all through the day and night, no matter what the weather. Perhaps the tourist board should have a word with her.

I saw someone suggest it was going to snow in Scunthorpe and Penistone. They've been banned.

The things I like about GP's forecasts are that they're clear, concise and unambiguous. I also like how he lets the forecasts stand on their own feet, doesn't spin them to his advantage, and doesn't gloat when he gets things right.

Managed to get into work this morning, but not sure I'd even make it back to the car to go home - thick black ice on everything - weird.

Yeah, I was merely indicating I wasn't in a Fiesta with bald budget tyres on. It is enjoyable seeing the offensively huge Audis and BMWs struggling this morning.

-2.2º and heavy rain/ That was an interesting drive into work this morning. The roads in Appleby aren't too bad (until the salt washes through) but the road from the village was dreadful. I've for a 4x4 with winter tyres, and on the downhill stretches, the car simply would not stop...it just carried on sliding.

As the cat woke me up this morning, I heard the Radio 4 weather mention a warning out for freezing rain, particularly in Cumbria, Northumberland, etc etc. Doesn't look like there's anything here yet, but at -2.2º, any rain falling is going to be lethal.

Down to -7.4º here at the moment, which is the joint second-coolest night of the winter.