Poor Transparency

[Bart]

3 nights in a row - amazing. However either poor transparency or light pollution getting worse. Sky looked bit washed out. How local is this? Would it affect very locally, i.e. East Cork in Ireland? or everywhere? Very dissapointing. Anyone else experiencing bad transparency? Is it to do with the recent End Of The World weather we're having?

Barry

[triton1]

There's just to much moisture in the air a real pain well at least your not picking on the clouds.

[swamp thing]

As John said above. Moisture.

The bane of the galaxy observer.

[F15Rules]

As John said above. Moisture.

The bane of the galaxy observer.

+1 re moisture. You can feel the moisture in the air even when it is "dry" outside. The ground is saturated, the air is saturated. When the sky is clear the seeing is usually rubbish. We need a prolonged spell of dry, cold clear weather but I'm not putting my mortgage on it. And, have you noticed how, when there are a few hours or clear sky, it almost always seems to coincide with an almost Full Moon??    ..

Dave

[PeterW]

Some of it might freeze out over the next week, but then that dratted reflective rock is back in the sky again!!

Cheers

Peter

[Bart]

Cheers!

Yes I agree, pesky moon. Sorry lunar enthusiasts!

[alan potts]

Barry,

It was so wet last night I was surprised it wasn't raining. Seeing was awful, Rigel about 20 degrees from horizon, high enough, couldn't even see the double with the 18 inch. Betelgeuse looked like it had gone supernova and the attempt on the Horse's Head would have been better at  Ascot, It did pick up though but by that time bits of me had started to drop off.

alan

[Bart]

Alan

Funny you say that because the last night I was out, some rain started to fall and when I looked around, the only clouds I could see were far off in the low horizon, how does that work?

[alan potts]

Barry,

Not a clue but I have known it spit with rain here when there were on very high clouds. At the very moment it is raining but it is also minus 1.5 outside, cold enough for snow. Clearly it is warmer at cloud level or it would be snow.

No wonder forecaster never get it right.

[jkwhinfrey]

Another +1 for moisture (or should that be -1?).

Strangely though the transparency has been routinely rubbish since last summer, I've had a couple of nights with excellent seeing... but only the two.

I've ventured outside to what appeared to be a promising sky only for patchy cloud to appear, then disappear again to leave milky murk in its place on many occasions. The SW wind has not been kind this autumn/winter.

Its going to take a prolonged spell of cold weather to knock the moisture out of the atmosphere. From the distant past I seem to remember the winter skies arrive with the weather from the NE, but I think the conditions aren't all that different in northern Europe.

James

[alan potts]

Its going to take a prolonged spell of cold weather to knock the moisture out of the atmosphere. From the distant past I seem to remember the winter skies arrive with the weather from the NE, but I think the conditions aren't all that different in northern Europe.

James

James,

The moisture must have been knocked out the atmosphere around here by the latest cold spell, it dumped 70cms of snow on us