euphony

Thanks for the advice everyone

Excellent That's just what I wanted to hear! Many thanks Sara

Hi guys, It's a long time since I posted here, life's been hectic! My CCD camera works well in my light polluted suburban skies, so that got me thinking about whether it would work better with the same equipment if I took it to darker skies? Any ideas? Chris

Wow, that sounds great, I'm slightly envious now!

Woah! Where were you in Maritius to take that??! Were you in hotel grounds? Or did you venture out to somewhere in the countryside? We might go to mauritius soon so it'd be good to know where we're likely to get a decent glimpse of the milkyway. We've recently come back from St Lucia in the caribbean and I was very disappointed at the night sky. I just couldn't find anywhere around the hotel that wasn't bathedin light that meant looking at the sky was impossible really. We were advised not to wander out the resort at night as well (for good reason, as apparently a man was killed on the beach after a mugging a few months before). So I came away very disappointed. I suspect we would have had to travel to the middle of nowhere to have any chance of seeing anything, but that wasn't recommended late at night! Oh well!

^ Same here! Sat24 shows no improvement on the horizon yet

I don't bother when the moon is out any more, it's just a waste of time. I thought using a CCD camera might be an option as that is really sensitive, so I could maybe still pick stuff up on longer exposures, but it made the image quality terrible and there was a huge difference to what you normally pick up. So I knocked that on the head and just wait until the full moon has passed (even then depending on where it is in the night/early morning sky it could be up to 6 days before I view again).

Yep, happened to me again. It was clear, I set up, aligned and the cloud rolled in. so another wasted night. It's not just the fact that the weather is so poor, it is the inability of any forecast to actually get it right that frustrates the life out of me. I have to forsake doing other things when I'm out with the telescope as I run a small independent record label, so that's twice this weekend when I could (and should have) been busy with admin tasks related to that, but instead spent all night setting up, then staring at clouds and packing up again. They have apparently forecast it clear again tonight, but this is like the boy who cried wolf! Do I really risk setting up again?

According to the BBC it's clear all day and all night here, but I won't get my hopes up as they're saying that it's clear right now. When it isn't, it's cloudy

I've only had one night clear the whole of February so far, so it just goes to show how localised the cloud can be.

Ok, I know there have been numerous threads about this over the last year as the weather has been absolutely ridiculous. the ridiculousness of it seems to have continued for most of the winter for me locally. Time after time after time it's supposed to be clear by a multitude of forecasts but 9 times out of ten it doesn't clear, or it clears for half an hour. I can count on my hands the number of times I have been able to actually have more than an hour to actually observe or try and image something in the past 4 months, no word of a lie. The occasional night it clears without warning I'm either tired out from work and can't keep my eyes open or I've had a few 'refreshments' down the pub with friends and setting up is really the last thing I know I should be doing. Oddly, i remember (perhaps I'm romanticizing, but I'm sure I remember it rather vividly), last year most the winter appeared to be clear as more often than not when I looked out the window or stepped outside it was clear. Am I the only one who seems to be experiencing this so often?

ahh..just found an updated article on the website,so anywhere between 19:45 and 23:00 http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-21442863

According to the BBC it should be at it's closest at 19:24 in the UK, but it doesn't say where it will be seen. I see the handle of the great bear mentioned above, is this still the concensus? I think I need to do a little more digging as by some mmiracle it's forecast to be clear. If so, and I find it, I can call my wife out excitedly who will look through the bino's and think I'm making it up and say i can't see 'anything'

5 months? Surely you mean the last 11 months? The last year has been ridiculous

I'll certainly have a go at that then. I will take some darks and flats next time. Many thanks