In principle, this article will be a great deal shorter than last year’s; the weather over the Regatta weekend preventing any War and Peace length article. So here is a précis of events.
Saturday: probably the best day, did allow some observations of the sun at the solar party event. As usual now our location was adjacent to trampoline/Go carts on the West Cliff and near to our friend Marcus at Grover Optics and the bird of prey display. The new gazebo acquired last year went up like a dream and once all the poster boards, inflatable solar system and scopes were set out, our pitch looked half decent- bordering pretty good... [Read more about Regatta 2018]
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On paper the prospects for this year’s Perseid shower were on the face of it as good as it gets for our society: no moonlight to interfere, a summer of seemingly endless clear nights, and for us the timing was perfect for the Regatta star parties... 
The timing of this year’s event is somewhat easier to set than last year, when various factors hindered suitable dates. So, ink in September 1st (Saturday) from 20:00h. 
Not long before we hit the peak season (we hope) as regards star parties.
The following evening skies cleared after earlier showers, leaving just interesting cloud formations to watch carefully.
AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. Yep, the only evening required clear – or even partly clear; July 27th, turned out apocalyptic. Mark did venture up to the West Cliff for 20:45h, sat in the car, headlights on, peering through hell unleashed, along with a few other hardy and optimistic souls.
Well, the fireworks were quite good, but too early and it wasn’t dark enough. The cloud rolled in off the sea, so we hardly saw anything, but the evening was enjoyable and we may have gained some new members. 
This was our second Park Fest event, a family fun day organised by North York Moors – Parks authority and held at the Danby Moors centre.
With the continuing good weather we have hosted a number of unscheduled star parties – and probably could have done more – but even Mark needs a break sometimes. Ironically the scheduled event on the 21st was almost called off with cloud cover during the day forecast to persist well into the night. It didn’t... well not enough to hamper our observations... 
Observers join WDAS Members for the one star party scheduled in 'the lightest month'. And the fog in which had marked the early part of the month had given way to clear skies and warm temperatures.
