After a number of abortive attempts to get my observatory recognised officially by the Minor Planet Centre, the recent long spell of clear weather allowed me to make enough observations of several asteroids over a sufficient period of time to demonstrate an acceptable level of accuracy and Samford Valley Observatory now bears the code Q79. Hurrah.

This code will mean that I can send my observations directly to them rather than through third parties, and even better, can generate lists of expected positions of asteroids (more properly known as ephemerides) without having to enter my location each time, just the code.

Previous attempts to get a code had been scuppered by weather, weather and weather…