Again the clouds roll in before I complete setup.. :(

[mikeyj1]

Arrrh...Again,

6pm Gloucestershire..clear as a bell, Clearoutside says all good until 11pm

7:30pm get home, check its still clear and its a mild 8deg

7:45 start setting up, get the kit out, level tripod, polar align balance scope start '3 star Alignment'

7:50 why can't I find sirius in the eyepiece...

7:55  ok, own up: who painted the sky white?

8pm crack open a Henry Westons Cider and ask the eternal question:  Why me?

8:45 finish packing away after checking collimation hoping the delay will lets the clouds pass over..

9:15, get on my computer, write this sorry saga in the hope that someone will sympathise with me, think about looking for a second bottle of that very nice liquid..

...

 

 

[paul mc c]

 

All to familiar feeling......thats why i decieded to build an observatory,that i am in the middle of now, just by pulling the roof back, i have every thing set up and ready to go.

 

[popeye85]

10 minutes ago, mikeyj1 said:

 

8pm crack open a Henry Westons Cider 

Sounds like not too bad a night to me tbh??

[scarp15]

Yep that is frustrating, good plan to crack open a bottle, complete cloud cover here, just opened my first bottle of WychWood Fire Catcher.

[Knighty2112]

We all know the feeling very well alas here in the UK!  

[Alfian]

Hi Mike, it's a pain! There have been quite a few times in the past weeks, when the afternoon and early evening has been good to the point where I got quite excited. Then, you got it, as the sun goes down the clouds roll in. Sometimes I think someone somewhere has got an odd sense of humour.

[Geoff Lister]

Just south of you, in North Somerset, we had clear skies until about 8:50pm, then almost 100% cloud. It was almost like someone had flicked a switch.

Gear now packed away and finishing mug of coffee.

Geoff

[Geoff_L]

Similar story here. Checked "Clear Outside" this afternoon: it said there'd be a clear window between 9pm and midnight. Quick check at 7:30-ish; the sky looked to be opening nicely and "Clear Outside" showed the same window as before. So we loaded our EQ5 Synscan mount, two OTAs, a DSLR, etc. into the car and set off for the 15 - 20 minute drive to our usual dark sky site. Arrived to find > 80% cloud cover and couldn't even see Polaris to polar align the mount. Nothing but cloud in the direction from where the wind was coming and so we drove back home and cracked open a bottle of wine. I guess that's astronomy in the UK!

[JemC]

Again the clouds rolled in!!

I can't remember when they last rolled out,

[ecuador]

The trick is to start getting things out while saying loudly "WELL I DON'T HAVE TIME TONIGHT, BUT I WILL JUST LEAVE THESE HERE FOR TOMORROW"... 

True story, works over 5% of the time.

[laudropb]

At least I have not had to set up my scope. Cloudy here day and night for the last couple of weeks.

[Stu]

Sorry to rub it in, but clear skies here still. Didn't do much, but nice views of Venus earlier, plus M42 and M45. Plenty of dew around though.

Keep at it, you will get lucky sooner or later

[Knighty2112]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Keep at it, you will get lucky sooner or later

Seems to be more later rather than sooner around here! Sheesh!  

[mikeyj1]

Wow.. Am I glad it's not just me?  Not really!  It's amazing this country was such a pioneer in Astronomy!  

I've thought about the obsy..  wife's not giving planning permission .. do I change location or wife..hhmm? (that second bottle makes this kind of rhetorical question possible  )

Was so looking forward to dark winter nights but since the new year, what a disaster..!

If anyone wants to adopt me from clearer climates, I am open to offers.  I am house trained, relatively well behaved and polite, will talk about astronomy all day and night, and could bring some nice kit to share  

PS:  i'm thinking the webmaster for this forum should check google analytics to correlate the number of postings to the weather situation...as we are all sat at keyboards reading posts rather than ooowing and aaaring at the wonders of the night sky!

Raise your glasses or bottles.. cheers all and fingers crossed for clear skies sometime soon..

Mike

 

 

[Starlight 1]

Well I had a hour out tonight seeing not that good , so I come back in and had a glass of cloudy lemonade .

[Davey-T]

Still pretty clear here, managed to get PAd to within a few arc secs, did an 85 point model of the sky and started an imaging run on M81/82, don't know how long it will last.

Dave

[DaveS]

It's held clear here though not very transparent.

Done 90 min oxygen and an hour nitrogen on the Rosette with the 80 followed by an hour in hydrogen with the 130.

Packing in now as the Rosette is gatting too far west and the vis is poor.

[Pete Presland]

The UK weather is predominantly cloudy unfortunately, the worst part for me is I haven't found an accurate source for predicting what's coming. Even short range seems nothing more than guesswork!

Had some clear skies in Bedfordshire for a while as well, the seeing was pretty good too. I was hoping for another go at Jupiter.

[Tony G]

Going through the same thing many many miles away. Work 3rd shift on top of that, and live in an apartment. Your not alone.

[JOC]

And now we got storm Doris about to hit landfall in a lot of UK areas - put your kits somewhere safe folks!

[Paz]

That is our lot in the UK. I've never known consistently good weather since I started a few years ago.

[Gary170782]

I actually started to stop looking up at how cloudy it was because I knew the answer wasn't going to be what I wanted. But today I popped something in the bin and looked up and to my surprise there wasn't a cloud in sight, and it was my son's bed time (perfect). Input my scope outside to cool down and popped my son off to bed, ( half hour in total). Go outside and couldn't see a bloody thing ?. Used my scope maybe 5 times since just before Xmas. 

[JOC]

It was 80% clear down here for a while last night, but such a gale still blowing that there was no way I was going to sit outside and peer down a telescope :-(