Got back from France at 10pm last night and woke at 4am. Sky here suffered from high misty cloud with one or two clearer patches. The cloud made the sky very bright within 10-15 degrees of the Moon. Since the main observatory is ‘hors de combat encore’, I would have had to use a tripod-mounted 4″ short-focus refractor to observe, but from experience I was convinced I would never have found the star in question. With a telescope of 10″ aperture or more, it might have been possible. Looking at the track of the shadow, the location here in Dorset would have been very close to that of Tim Haymes and David Arditti so not a great deal lost in the event. Congratulations to those two folk and to Peter Carson for their positives. Not easy!
Richard