A few days ago (the 4th) we had some clear skies (yay! no cloud!) so I got my telescope out to do some stargazing. The mount is one of these clever goto things, you type in your location, time, date etc, select some alignment stars and away you go. Just type in what you want to look at and the scope 'goes to' it. So, I selected Arcturus as my first alignment star. Scope slewed off in completely the wrong direction. Tried again, no joy. Switched everything off and on, re-entered all the data, ...

I've been visiting Austria for many years and one of my favourite places is Grossglockner. Apart from the mountain itself, the highest in Austria, one of the main features there is the Pasterze glacier. Sadly in recent times it hase been retreating at an alarming rate. Here's some photos I've taken of the glacier. The first was in 2005 and the second was taken last week. For scale I've added a close-up of the 2013 with arrows pointing to people. When you look at the size of th...