A brief window of clear sky.

[Alfian]

A few nights ago the skies looked promising, indeed Metcheck said so too so I got a bit excited which is never a good omen. Sure enough an all too familiar thin veil of cloud rolled over and the visible stars became small blobs of mush. Last night it rained, correction, it hammered against the windows like it does in these parts. Come 10.15pm it was get the dogs out for the usual last comfort break time. I walked outside and could barely believe it, two thirds of the sky were well clouded up, but before me to the east was sparkling clear skies, really clear. Dogs "done" and back in the house, I grabbed the binos (Opticron 10x42) and was back out. Such was the clarity I was sure I could make out M31 with the naked eye but not sure and eyes were far from properly dark adapted. With the binos M31 was a treat and its shape and breadth far clearer than even on what I would call a night of good seeing conditions. Over to the double cluster and again a great star spangly view, the whole Perseus constellation just lovely. Within 10 minutes it was hammering down again. What gives? I just don't really understand how a window amongst the rain clouds can be so clear. Still a "session" no matter how small  is worth having. I went to bed the happier for it.

[nightfisher]

Always good to grab a short "window", on the other hand it amazes me how it can be clear then cloud over in a matter of minutes while setting up a scope

[Alfian]

3 minutes ago, nightfisher said:

Always good to grab a short "window", on the other hand it amazes me how it can be clear then cloud over in a matter of minutes while setting up a scope

Thats for sure. Its funny (not) how when starting to set up the skies are clear and you look up and there's this big cloud scudding towards you. Clouds have a very odd sense of humour.  I think the thing that surprises me, reflecting on last night, is that I tend to think of bad weather bringing with it turbulent seeing conditions, which didn't seem to be the case.

[Red Dwarfer]

Exact same scenario here too - a 15 minute window to see the Wild Duck cluster and M57 - just when I worked the way down to 5mm for M57 it started to rain ...

A quick fix is better than none at all