Seeing tonight terrible or just me?

[vegaandarctures]

Just popped out with the dob for a peep at mars and the moon. Seeing is as bad as it’s ever been. I’m in Wiltshire, anyone else out tonight? 

[John]

I had about 15 minutes of clearish sky earlier this evening. The views of Mars were very mediocre. The Moon was rather nice though. That was it though. Cloudy since then.

[Deadlake]

I think the next 2 weeks are a write off. Apparently this winter is go to as cold as the ones 10 years ago. Whether that is a help or hinderance I have no idea... After the summer, this weather is such a change...

[Tiny Clanger]

I went out about 6pm, spent a few minutes looking at Saturn (too low) , switched to Mars and the surface was far less distinct than on the 19th.

Covered the 'scope, and nipped in for an indoor coffee break, hoping things would improve , but despite persisting from 7:45 until 9:30 no Martian joy tonight . Had my first good look at the Moon in my new toy (127 mak) though, which was an impressive sight.

Proper, settled cold weather should be good for seeing I'd have thought, with less moisture able to be held in cold air ?

[Moonshed]

I’ve been imaging for two hours, started with Jupiter just to see if it was on or not, defo not, too low, then over to Mars. It was wobbling about a bit  but if anything slightly better than it’s been for the past week. I’m interested to see how it comes out .

[wulfrun]

Pretty calm & cold here too but I agree with Tiny Clanger, it doesn't look very good conditions in reality. Jupiter & Saturn were a bit low and a bit near to getting obscured by nearby houses. Had a quick look through the binoculars and couldn't even see Jupiter's moons. The moon had a bit of a haze so I didn't bother getting the 'scope out, don't think it would've been any better a view of anything.

Edited November 22, 2020 by wulfrun
typos

[IB20]

Had some lovely views of the moon with the 10mm BCO, Mars not so much, the features looking a bit washed out but occasional glimpses of the SPC and albedo features. Neptune was easy to find but very grey, maybe an effect from the moon’s brightness? 
 

Have moved onto double viewing now with the Hyperflex zoom, gamma arietis is a belter.

[JamesF]

16 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

Apparently this winter is go to as cold as the ones 10 years ago.

There's little sign of that over this side of the country.  We did have frosts three days in a row back at the start of the month which is quite uncommon, but I'm currently seeing fairly consistent daytime temperatures of over 10C which seems unusually warm given that we're barely a week from December.  As I have posted elsewhere, I was working outside in a t-shirt this weekend.  No jacket required, to quote, err, someone from the 80s :)

Wasps are still flying here too.  They should be well gone by now.  And whilst most of the trees have lost their leaves thanks to the last storm that blew through, the peppers and chile plants in my polytunnel are still hanging on to theirs.

It could all change of course, and to do so rapidly would be pretty consistent with the way the weather has been for the last few years.  The northerly winds  that often bring cold weather can also bring clear skies because the cold air can't hold so much moisture, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

James

(Yes, I know it was Phil Collins, by the way.)

[Freddie]

There appears to be a reasonable amount of confusion in this post between seeing and transparency. Moisture/mist in the air will reduce transparency but not necessarily seeing. In fact mist holding in the air can actually indicate there could be good seeing as the lower atmosphere will be reasonably stable to allow the mist to hang. Bad seeing is caused by a turbulent atmosphere and is not directly linked to how clear the sky is. Seeing depends on how stable the atmosphere is, transparency depends on how misty/murky the atmosphere is.

[Tiny Clanger]

'Reasonable amount of confusion' is my default setting 😀

[Ships and Stars]

Pretty good conditions here in NE Scotland. Seeing ok by me but transparency good to excellent. I was only using binoculars (15x70s and 20/40x100s) so not typical telescope high magnifications, but enough to say it's decent enough here anyway.

[markse68]

Pretty good down here in London- the clouds have even cleared

Mark

[globular]

Pretty good here in Shrophire - fairly stable atmosphere and little to no cloud; so clear in fact that the temperature has dropped below freezing. 🥶

Wonderful to have a nice long session - first one in far too long. 

[Saganite]

Very good in my part of Cambridgeshire, 200X plus on Lunar , it was so steady. Near perfect star tests, excellent . By 1.15 am the transparency got a bit worse, but all in , a very good session

[badhex]

Was out on Friday night for a couple of hours (in Berlin) giving my new C5 a quick first light and the sky was (mostly) visibly clear of clouds, but Mars even at fairly low power was only stable for maybe a minute at a time, and then five mins of horrific shimmer. I gave up in the end. Even the stars in the Pleiades were all over the place. 

Maybe my terrible views moved over from Berlin to the UK! 

Edited November 23, 2020 by badhex

[markse68]

9 hours ago, markse68 said:

Pretty good down here in London- the clouds have even cleared

Mark

turned out to be one of those amazing nights in fact- trap e and f clear as a bell and in moments of dead calm (essential and just as important as seeing) I saw the pup again 😃 which is super rare (for me)! 

Mark

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Seeing has been very poor at night in Liverpool for several weeks, we literally can't see anything except clouds!

The early hours of Monday was actually good, much better than forecast, but typically I was knackered and managed thirty minutes with the binos before giving in. ☹️