Frustration - Met Check & Families

[dazza1639]

Last week the forecast on Met Check for the weekend was showing carp for Saturday night & clear for Sunday. I thought this is perfect as I have a can't get out of family celebration on Saturday so I can enjoy the clear skies on Sunday.

Saturday night comes round and as we're sat in the garden, chimnea burning away nicely cold beer & good food, the lightly scattered clouds getting thinner by the minute as it gets darker. Just my luck one of the clearest nights we've had in weeks. I thought never mind Sunday night was predicted to be better anyway.

So last night I setup around 7:30pm, as the sky looked promising only a few scattered high level clouds, I wanted to get the last hour of solar observing in before it started to go dark. Pointed the scope at the Sun and wouldn't you know it a band of cloud right across the middle completely obscuring the Sunspots that I managed to get a fleeting glimpse of. So I went in leaving the scope outside because the sky still looked reasonably promising. I went back out at about 10:30, showed the wife & mother-in-law Saturn & the Beehive they where both amazed. So after they went in at about 10:50, the western horizon by this time was clouded out obscuring the moon Venus & saturn so I decided to have a crack at M13, I got on it focused and attached the camera took a test shot, adjusted the scope, I only managed to get 2x30s subs at ISO400 before it got clouded out. Ok so these things happen, Lyra looks quite clear, I'll have a crack at M57, again 2 subs & clouded out.

I went to bed disappointed, cursing Met check & families.

Darren

[daz]

Always the way, Darren!

Metcheck can't get yesterdays right!!!!