With only four weeks to go before the summer solstice, we're into the long light evenings when it doesn't get dark until after 10pm. But rather than waiting for proper darkness, last night I was outside observing the Moon, Venus and Jupiter soon after 9pm!

The first-quarter Moon was well-placed high in the West, making a convenient reference-point for the Solar System Alignment in Celestron alt-az mounts. Then having aligned on the Moon, I could GoTo Venus and add it as an Alignment Star. Another GoTo put Jupiter within the field of my 20mm eyepiece (x21 magnification), so that I could centre it and switch to the 6.3mm eyepiece (x67). As well as seeing that planet's cloud-belts, I was surprised that I could also make out a couple of its Galilean moons against the blue-sky background.

I had go at this a few weeks ago around teatime, ( see gallery, small picture of venus)
I could just see mecury as it quite near to the sun I was well impressed that i could see planets in the broad daylight