Clear Outside Weather Forecasts for Astronomers

[Grant_FLO]

The forecasts look like they match to me

You've got the view set to 'Center on Midnight' which when you view before midday means in order to show the morning it actually starts by showing the second half of yesterday. 

That means in your screenshot the forecast for tonight is actually the first chunk of the second 'Monday' row of data.

I don't like the centre on midnight view for this reason and prefer the 'Start at current hour' view because it is much more intuitive to read - you might also want to install the app because this gives a much better experience on mobile devices than the cut down mobile version of the website.

Hope that helps

 

[Peco4321]

42 minutes ago, Grant_FLO said:

The forecasts look like they match to me

You've got the view set to 'Center on Midnight' which when you view before midday means in order to show the morning it actually starts by showing the second half of yesterday. 

That means in your screenshot the forecast for tonight is actually the first chunk of the second 'Monday' row of data.

I don't like the centre on midnight view for this reason and prefer the 'Start at current hour' view because it is much more intuitive to read - you might also want to install the app because this gives a much better experience on mobile devices than the cut down mobile version of the website.

Hope that helps

 

Got it!  Thanks. 

[Stub Mandrel]

BBC forecast allows more cloud before its stops saying a clear night, so a Clear Outside amber can show as a BBC cloudless and they are both 'right'.

But they also use a different mix of data sources.

 

[FLO]

Please see this notice regarding cloud data displayed at Clear Outside  

[procky1845]

Hi,

I seem to be having some issues scrolling on the Android app after one of the recent updates. If I scroll right to left it only scrolls a very minimal amount and then stops. In order to scroll through the entire week I then have to swipe repeatedly from right to left.

Interestingly though if I swipe right to left on the header part where it shows the day and solar/lunar info, it seems to scroll overly quickly.

Is anybody else having the same issue?

Thanks

[RayD]

1 minute ago, procky1845 said:

Hi,

I seem to be having some issues scrolling on the Android app after one of the recent updates. If I scroll right to left it only scrolls a very minimal amount and then stops. In order to scroll through the entire week I then have to swipe repeatedly from right to left.

Interestingly though if I swipe right to left on the header part where it shows the day and solar/lunar info, it seems to scroll overly quickly.

Is anybody else having the same issue?

Thanks

Yes same here on Galaxy S7 Edge

[procky1845]

Ah yes, I should have said in my other post, I'm on a Google Nexus 6P

[FLO]

Grant mentioned this earlier, something about an update to the Android OS causing a problem with Clear outside. We use IOS here at FLO so only noticed it when Android users started posting negative reviews. Grant is working on a fix. 

HTH, 

Steve 

[Stub Mandrel]

Just to say it was spot on last night; first time I've used it in anger since the update.

[RayD]

It isn't a big issue, it's jut instead of flow scrolling right it only goes a bit.  Still works fine.

[FLO]

3 hours ago, RayD said:

It isn't a big issue, it's jut instead of flow scrolling right it only goes a bit.  Still works fine.

Grant has replicated the problem so will soon have a fix for it, probably sometime tomorrow. 

HTH 

[FLO]

The scrolling issue on some Android devices should now be fixed. You may need to completely close the app and reopen.

The issue was due to an update to one of the system components of Android that caused a conflict with the way scrolling works in Clear Outside.

For now we just wanted to fix this issue but we are working on improvements and new features to the app

[RayD]

4 minutes ago, FLO said:

The scrolling issue on some Android devices should now be fixed. You may need to completely close the app and reopen.

The issue was due to an update to one of the system components of Android that caused a conflict with the way scrolling works in Clear Outside.

For now we just wanted to fix this issue but we are working on improvements and new features to the app

Wonderful, all working smooth and dandy now.  Thanks guys good job and quick response   Now if you could make sure all the boxes are green all the time, that would be grand 

[FLO]

Our thanks to Chris Vaughan at Space.com for mentioning Clear Outside in his article Turn Your Smartphone into an Astronomy Toolbox with Mobile Apps. 

?️?️⛅️☀️?✨?

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Works on my android and is mercifully ad-free (except for Aunty Flo of course!)

[Jim Rand]

Excuse the noob question.  But what does Visibility refer too on this site?

[Stub Mandrel]

How far you can see towards the horizon  rather than straight up  (i.e. it gets reduced by fog, haze, snow or rain).

[FLO]

We've added the ability to turn on 'Experimental Features' today - at the bottom of the forecast (website only for now) there is a button:

Pressing it turns on the experimental features for that browser. You can turn it off at any time by pressing the button again.

The first experimental feature is an additional cloud forecast taken from a different weather source, here is an example:

Clear Outside is not a weather forecaster - we take existing data sources and present the data in an astronomer friendly way. We know many of you (us included!) check multiple forecasts when looking ahead so this is one step towards Clear Outside being able to display multiple cloud forecasts from multiple sources.

If you have other sources you would like to suggest, please let us know.

As this is an experimental features we are not using the additional forecast to influence the traffic light ratings.

In the future, the idea may be to (optionally) display multiple cloud forecasts and give you the ability to choose which ones you would like to have displayed and which ones to discount that way if you have a particular data source for your location that seems to get it right more often, you may choose to only display that forecast.

 

[alexbb]

meteoblue predicts also seeing

[FLO]

Just now, moise212 said:

meteoblue predicts also seeing

We've still not found a reliable data source for this - last I checked Meteoblues was theoretical and experimental.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how useful it is - if it's clear, I'm going to be outside if possible regardless of a seeing estimate

[BGazing]

6 minutes ago, moise212 said:

meteoblue predicts also seeing

their seeing predictions are essentially useless at the moment...not a single night they guessed it right lately. predict mediocre, it's excellent, predict fantastic and it turns out poor...

[alexbb]

1 minute ago, FLO said:

We've still not found a reliable data source for this - last I checked Meteoblues was theoretical and experimental.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how useful it is - if it's clear, I'm going to be outside if possible regardless of a seeing estimate

Most of the times I found the guiding graph behaving better or worse, in line with their prediction. But I live in Romania, the weather can be more predictable here as there's no big puddle around where I live

[RayD]

23 minutes ago, FLO said:

We've still not found a reliable data source for this - last I checked Meteoblues was theoretical and experimental.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how useful it is - if it's clear, I'm going to be outside if possible regardless of a seeing estimate

I must admit I never use the seeing function.  Like you say, if it is clear I image, I just work around the seeing and find out how bad it is when I start guiding.  I certainly wouldn't choose to not image when it's clear because the seeing is bad.

It's a great app.

Edited May 10, 2018 by RayD

[alexbb]

3 minutes ago, RayD said:

I certainly wouldn't choose to not image when it's clear because the seeing is bad.

You can record longer wavelengths when seeing is worse

[souls33k3r]

I tend to use a variety of apps/websites to make a decision. I must admit, i've only got it wrong a handful of times and a few times when i thought "Damn it looks clear right now so seems like i've misjudged the predictions" have actually turned out to be a miserable cloudy night any way.

I couldn't care less like RayD about the bad seeing, as long as it's clear and will remain like that for the entire imaging session, i'll be out.