Bright lights, big city

Half past midnight on Friday, looking west from the top of Castle Hill; New Hall in the bottom right-hand corner, the Pleiades at the top, Aries and Triangulum in the centre, Andromeda at the right, Cetus and Pisces in the bottom left ... a region of the sky that, even if you could see through the glow, would have little defence against being described as small boring groups of faint stars. The glow left of centre at the bottom is probably St Neots.

The ability to get at midnight to somewhere that the sky is reasonably dark is really the only incentive to learn to drive that my current lifestyle gives me; the sets of my friends with cars, with interests in astronomy, and without sole care of a small child have I think no intersection. I'm not even quite sure where to go: Cambridgeshire, whilst well-endowed in so many respects, has few isolated steep unwooded south-facing hills with convenient road access. Not that I got up many of those when in better-so-furnished Gloucestershire.