Cloudy day astronomy

[Mike37N113W]

I'm new to this forum so still finding my way around. I posted this the other day somewhere else on the forum - but I think this is the right place. Sorry for the double posting - will be more careful in the future.

This is pretty basic information but I'm still sharing it for two reasons. First, it has been completely overcast and windy for the past two days, so what would have been observing time gave way to projects like this. Second, even though Astronomy 101 teaches that a star with an apparent magnitude of 5.0 is 2.512 times brighter than a 6.0 magnitude star, these brightness differences amaze me.

That's particularly true when I apply these differences as I observe. For example, my site's visual limiting magnitude is about 6.0. My telescope lets me see stars with an apparent magnitude fainter than 13. That difference of 7 magnitudes means the dimmest star I can see with my naked eye is 631 times brighter than what I can see through my telescope. That puts what I'm looking at in perspective and makes going out in the cold weather this time of year well worth the effort.

Thanks to the clouds, I made an Excel table showing the brightness difference for every 1/10th of apparent magnitude difference from 0.1 to 15.9. The table is probably too wide to fit here (new to this forum - not sure about what's "proper") - but you can see it and copy/paste it from my blog at Red Mountain Observatory: Brightness difference based on magnitude difference

[Mr Q]

I may be off track here in assuming you are looking for some astronomy related activity during cloudy nights. If this is part of what you were rtefering to, you can do what I do - still observe but from another location somewhere else in the world via a live observer feed to the internet. There are two sites I frequent:

astronomy.customer.netspace.net.auastronomylive.htm

nightskynetwork.com

[Mike37N113W]

I may be off track here in assuming you are looking for some astronomy related activity during cloudy nights. If this is part of what you were rtefering to, you can do what I do - still observe but from another location somewhere else in the world via a live observer feed to the internet. There are two sites I frequent:

astronomy.customer.netspace.net.auastronomylive.htm

nightskynetwork.com

Thanks Mr Q - the links are not working for me - but I was able to find the nightskynetwork by typing in the url myself - but can't find the astronomy.customer website.

[imarcs]

Astronomy 101 teaches that a star with an apparent magnitude of 5.0 is 2.512 times brighter than a 6.0 magnitude star, these brightness differences amaze me.

That's particularly true when I apply these differences as I observe. For example, my site's visual limiting magnitude is about 6.0. My telescope lets me see stars with an apparent magnitude fainter than 13. That difference of 7 magnitudes means the dimmest star I can see with my naked eye is 631 times brighter than what I can see through my telescope. That puts what I'm looking at in perspective and makes going out in the cold weather this time of year well worth the effort.

That's a very interesting point. I have never really considered it like that. Thanks for helping my attitude.

[Mr Q]

Sorry Mike - I goofed on the urls. try these:nightskynetwork.com andastronomy.customer.netspace.net.au/astronomylive.htm

Nightskynet is not on line presently and the other should work. You need to register (free) to access the live images.

[Nexus 6]

Looks like you have some great skies to observe from with a LM of 6 Mike. Got to help in seeing some fantastic faint objects.