FLO

After nearly six months Clear Outside has generated 300,741 forecasts for 6,785 locations. Thank-you

We are now a team of eight Natasha recently joined us and is working full-time with Annette and Lisa in order processing and dispatch. She is also a fully trained barista! Steve

We have begun work on a Clear Outside app for Android

Are you using the app or the website?

We have begun work on the Android app but we are almost entirely Apple here at FLO so it'll be a steep learning curve. Grant did say he likes a challenge... Steve

Apple have approve the Clear Outside cloud forecast app Hope you like it.

We submitted it to Apple last Wednesday. Apple don't say how long they take to approve an app but it appears eight days is average so it might be available at the app store later this week We are assuming it passes first time...

If the IOS app proves popular we will develop one for Android - promise Steve

It won't cost you anything. Clear Outside is our free gift to the astronomy community because, without you, we wouldn't be here Steve

The Clear Outside app is built and ready for launch Grant has finished the clever techie stuff and I need only to write a description for the app store's 'Details' page, then we'll submit it to Apple for approval. We aren't sure how long they will need (this is our first app) but we are guessing 1-3 weeks. HTH, Steve

We have received some really nice feedback from Clear Outside users but this email received last night is one of the nicest "Just wanted to say thank-you for providing such a great website. Tonight I was able to observe the International Space Station with my 7yr old daughter as it passed overhead.We were both amazed by the sight.It's simple things like this that have sparked her interest in astronomy."

With the telescope, camera and binocular lists growing we have added search-as-you-type ability to the drop-down lists It is certainly a lot quicker than multiple menus or scrolling through a long list. As always, if you can see a way Astronomy Tools can be improved or would like a new calculator added please let us know. HTH, Steve

Thank-you to everyone who has added telescopes, cameras and eyepieces to the Astronomy Tools website Also, we would like the site to be as useful as possible so we really won't mind if you enter equipment sold by our competitors Steve

Slightly less than perfect would be a dream come true

Clear Outside was launched only three months ago but has already generated 149,932 forecasts for 3,828 locations and feedback from users is remarkably positive, considering it is a weather forecast website. We are currently putting the finishing touches to a Clear Outside App for IOS that will be released around the end of October. If it is well received we'll begin work on another for Android. Thank-you to all those using Clear Outside Steve

Tim had one on loan. He didn't have a lot of opportunity to use it (the weather didn't cooperate and it was needed for a magazine review) but when I spoke with him at SGL9 his conclusion was it had a marvellous flat field and excellent resolution but colour performance was very dependant on precise and critical focus, which is normal for an ultra-fast telescope of this type. A comparison with the FSQ106? The VSD100 is in short supply so I think it will be a while before we see a report from someone able to compare them. It will also be difficult to find someone truly neutral and objective, owners tend to promote and recommend whatever they have purchased (if you had just spent £5k on a telescope you probably would too). But both telescopes are expensive high-end Japanese-made astrographs so I expect their performance will be very similar. We should have an ETA for the tube-rings and reducer soon. HTH, Steve

I had forgotten about this thread until yesterday when someone told me off for not posting more about my choice To be fair, I don't normally discuss my choice of kit because I feel forums work best when members share firsthand experience, not retailers, and retailer opinions are rarely objective so should be taken with a pinch of salt! But here goes: Having spent nearly my entire working life selling optics I believe the Opticron Imagic TGA WP series are the BEST binoculars at their price. There are other models that are more compact and more robust but all things considered, especially optical quality, I haven't found anything better. Mine are always with me at star parties so if you have found something better for the price let's meet and do a comparison. How's that for coming off the fence Steve

Celestron are answering questions like these before the telescopes have even been launched The long life lithium iron phosphate batteries used in the Celestron Evolution series are rated to sustain two thousand charge cycles and have a life expectancy of 10 years. So a few minutes spent changing it, if necessary, is not a hardship HTH, Steve

We have added two more embeddable forecasts so you can now choose small, medium or large options To embed a Clear Outside cloud forecast in your forum signature, website or blog please go to your local forecast then click on the 'Embed forecast' button (top-left). The 'small' option is shown below in my signature but here are the 'medium' and 'large' for comparison:

Thank-you for the kind comments We have another update for the astronomy tools binocular calculator section. Manufacturers tend to specify a binocular's FOV either as metres @1000 metres or angular FOV in degrees, but rarely both. This can make comparing binoculars difficult so we have created calculators to convert one format to another. Hope you find them useful. Steve

The exit-pupli is currently available above and to the right of the image (see attached crop) but I guess if someone saves the image for later it would be useful if it were there too. Thank-you Rik

Another small but significant update. When comparing binocular FOVs using the astronomy tools FOV calculator the image text now includes exit-pupil size. You can select up to seven different binoculars and compare their magnification, objective diameter, FOV and exit-pupil size. This is true even if you are using the smaller astronomy tools window on our product description pages. Please see the Helios Apollo binocular and Opticron 80 WP binocular pages for examples. Hope you find it useful

It is normal for a forecast's accuracy to improve as the forecast time approaches but we like to think Clear Outside's multiple feeds and hourly updates give it an advantage over sites that use only a single feed and update less frequently. Having accurate location mapping helps too. We will happily take full credit for your clear sky Steve

Thank-you for taking the time to assess it over a number of days As you can imagine we have Clear Outside running continuously at FLO HQ and it is pretty accurate here too. I am looking forward to welcoming astro darkness at 01.07 tonight Not sure on the timescale atm (it will be our first app) but it will happen Steve

Thank-you Stevp FLO's sales and communications if charted would look like the Annual Darkness graphic above so we are making Clear Outside and Astronomy Tools as good as we possibly can before the busy season arrives.