Popular Post FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2014 "It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages." Henry FordFirst Light Optics is only one month away from her seventh birthday. With your support we have grown from a single person working from home to a team of seven operating from two units on a business park in Exeter. We literally could not have done this without you so we are hugely grateful. Earlier this year we began wondering how we can give something back to the community. We already sponsor Stargazerslounge which benefits it's members and others searching for info. But many of our customers don't belong to this or any other forum. We considered emailing all our customers with a one-off discount code but that didn't feel right because it would benefit only those who were in a position to buy. Then Grant came up with a really neat idea - a weather forecast site dedicated to astronomers.There are of course other forecast sites available with an astronomy theme but often they use only a single freely available data source or, worse, simply scrape data from other sites. And they tend to be built on a budget so don't update frequently enough to be really useful or they provide limited information so you need to visit multiple sites to obtain a full picture. So we decided to build the best weather forecast site focused entirely on astronomy and to release it free of charge. Clear Outside Weather Forecasts for AstronomersHere are some key feature: Hourly forecasts, updated hourly. Easy to understand traffic-light indicators with a drop-down menu for those wanting more information. Without giving too much away we use an aggregate of a number of weather models including the UK Met Office, the Norwegian Met Office and the American NOAA. To provide the most reliable up-to-date forecast and long-term stability we have invested in commercial weather data services and a dedicated infrastructure. Detailed Sun and Moon rise, set and meridian data are accurately modelled on your location. Similarly we have integrated ISS pass over times and other info modelled on your precise longitude and latitude. For more information please click the 'How to Use' button and take the tour. We have also included a 'Contact Us' page where you can make suggestions and leave feedback and a ‘Road Map’ page where we will detail upgrades and developments we are working on. It is our gift to you the astronomy community for your support over the years. We hope you like it Regards, SteveG, Annette, James, Grant, Lisa, Martin & SteveB. 65 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carbon Brush Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 This sounds great. Many thanks FLO. Looking forward to giving it a try out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m37 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 That's a great site, a welcome resource.Thanks from all of us frustrated UK astronomers. Very nice of you to give something back (again!).Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Smith Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Like it. What a great idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FunkyKoval35 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Good site, but.. I do not see any seeing data...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F15Rules Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 This is a great gesture, really practical and full credit to everyone at FLO Now we can know, absolutely, for sure, without any doubt whatsoever, that it's going to be cloudy - every day! Seriously, many thanks, guys and girls Dave 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 PS: This is also a good time to publicly thank our beta-testers for their advice and input. We really appreciated your thoughts PSS: Clear Outside is a long-term project, this is only Version-1, so we are keen to hear your thoughts and suggestions. And if you have any questions we will do our best to answer them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar_observer Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Thanks flo, brilliant idea :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazar Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Wow ...nice....already bookmarked! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve 1962 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Thank you Steve - I found this by chance yesterday and had a play with it last night. I think it's great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melsky Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Excellent job FLO it was nice to meet you all at the IAS, will this be available as an App as well?Mel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swag72 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 I'd put this on my favourites bar a couple of nights ago and decided to give it the maiden voyage so to speak, last night.The setup is good and the level of information is very comprehensive - It's a nice format to view.On the other hand, and no reflection on you guys, I am pleased to report that it's as hopelessly inaccurate as all the other weather predicting services 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgs001 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Looks great, Nice one Steve and team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Smith Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 This looks very useful. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyteen02 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Is there an option to increase the number of green boxes? Might be a problem with my laptop, but there appear to be too many red boxes?#weatherinducedsobbing 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant_FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Good site, but.. I do not see any seeing data...?Good question We do not currently provide a measure of the seeing in terms of arc seconds etc... for a few reasons - any place that does offer this already, will say somewhere that it's experimental and unvalidated - there is no definitive algorithm for calculating seeing in this way so we've not focussed on this for phase one - it's something we may look into as a future addition but, we will probably not use this measure when calculating the hourly traffic light colour because with the skies and weather we have in this country, a clear night is already a lot to ask for, so a clear night with perfect seeing is very hard to come by!Cheers,Grant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mav359 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 I like itgreat idea guys thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brantuk Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 I saw this yesterday at IAS where Steve demo'd it for me and it's a terrific application. Great product and smashing gesture - big thanks to Steve, Grant, Jamie, and all at FLO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant_FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 I'd put this on my favourites bar a couple of nights ago and decided to give it the maiden voyage so to speak, last night.The setup is good and the level of information is very comprehensive - It's a nice format to view.On the other hand, and no reflection on you guys, I am pleased to report that it's as hopelessly inaccurate as all the other weather predicting services A lot of testing has happened in the background comparing the forecast with reality, and the results have been good but, as you say with any forecast, weather prediction is notoriously hard!To try and improve this, we will be building in a feedback mechanism so we can keep track of peoples actual results vs the forecasts. This will hopefully allow us to track how accurate the forecast is vs when the forecast was made. It also may help us find ways to improve the forecasts and spot area specific trends that we can build in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant_FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Is there an option to increase the number of green boxes? Might be a problem with my laptop, but there appear to be too many red boxes?#weatherinducedsobbing We are really sorry but the big 'Clear My Skies Now' button didn't make it into version one. It's currently scheduled for an April 1st 2015 launch 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant_FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Excellent job FLO it was nice to meet you all at the IAS, will this be available as an App as well?MelYes - hopefully for both Android and IOS.For now, the site is responsive and will adapt to varying screen sizes so it should at least be usable on all devices but, the level of data shown will be reduced on small screens so that it's still readable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knobby Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Bookmarked! Many thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webboid Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Thanks FLO. Looks very good.I will add it to the 9 other sites I refer to & see how it compares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDUNN1 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Brilliant idea! This is always a source of frustration, going to multiple weather sites and getting multiple responses, some of which are not astro specific or minded with their forecasts, so it's great to see one being added that is. Cheers FLO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLO Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 I'd put this on my favourites bar a couple of nights ago and decided to give it the maiden voyage so to speak, last night.It is impressive that you found it Sara The site was made live 6am Saturday to coincide with the International Astronomy Show. We have been testing it ourselves for weeks but wanted to be 100% sure before mentioning it here. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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