Kielder Water

Today was the best day of our stay, in that the sun was out for most of the time. We drove north to Kielder Water, where it had rained violently when we visited two years ago.

This time, we drove up the western side and enjoyed coffee and cake, in my case a flapjack, in the cafe at Kielder Castle, a hunting lodge built for the Duke of Northumberland in the eighteenth century. 

Cloud gathered over the water while we were driving back but cleared once we had passed the reservoir. This view is a panorama compiled from three photos taken from Elf Hill.

After dinner, we adjourned to the observatory at Battlesteads. Our guide introduced us to a refractor and a reflector telescope through which we were able to look at the Moon. Fortunately, the high cloud dispersed enough for us also to enjoy sight of the Pleiades and the Andromeda Galaxy 2.5 million light years from Earth. It looked something like a white splodge but it was possible to discern texture within it. That made it worth waiting out in the cold for our turns to look in the telescope.

None of my photos of the sky worked, partly because it was full moon. Once the moon was up, there was too much light to see the stars clearly. I have pre-moonrise photos of sky but with no distinguishing features such as the Milky Way.