When will it clear/ should I give up?

[Astrid]

I just bought my fancy-pants equipment in September and guess what... ever since then it was permanently cloudy. I barely had 3 days to observe Jupiter (thru the finder scope), the Moon (which was absolutely stunning) and Mars. Personally I'm seriously thinking about giving up on AP :')

So I guess... this thread is a safe space to complain about the terrible weather all across Europe (but not only).

 

Clear skies! 😅

[Miguel1983]

It has been horrible indeed, the only way is up !

[Craney]

My gripe is that it is always clear when I have no time to appreciate it... !!!!.

Keep the faith.  

Most of the stars will still  be there in a few weeks time ....   

[callisto]

Same here....I've been building up my AP set up for the past few months and have not had a proper chance to use it yet 😣

[scarp15]

Perhaps for another section (or maybe its all of us that should be sectioned) but yes its understandably grim in terms of weather and combined with covid restrictions. Must be particularly difficult presently for AP. Circumstances will improve and chances realised, often its a game of cat and mouse where the weather is concerned. Visual astronomy is perhaps less frustrating, employing tactics ranging from impromptu brief sessions using binoculars through to full scale dark sky assaults. 

[John]

I do grab and go observing mostly and that has been challenging over the past few weeks with most sessions only lasting an hour at best. Goodness knows how folks who have complex setups for imaging are getting anything done

Although it has been an awfully challenging year outside of this hobby, 2020 looked at from an astronomical perspective has been quite a spectacular year with the best comet for over 20 years, the best opposition of Mars (no planet-wide dust storm this time) for many years and a once-in-a-lifetime grand conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurring right now.

We are going through a difficult period weather-wise just now but there will be better times ahead, I'm sure

 

 

 

[Paz]

The majority of my observing has been opportunistic since I started around 5 years ago. I've never known consistently clear skies and so I think of mostly cloudy skies an normal.

[Luke]

One thing I like about astro gear is that it seems to last for ages. I'm still enjoying scopes bought several years ago. My eyepieces look like they will last for 20 years plus. So I am trying to think long-term when the weather sucks.

My recent views were well worth waiting for. I had taken a bit of a break during solar minimum and coming back to it sort of fresh makes me think again how mind-blowing it is what we can see and image.

I am glad I have another hobby to do while it is cloudy, though!

[alan potts]

For what it's worth I am not exactly having a fun time many miles south. I got about 90mins two nights back but it was generally poor seeing and passing very light haze though i did get 15 subs of 4 mins taken. It was a chance to test the new multi star guiding, which I have to say seemed very good. Weather is not just mainly cloudy, it's cold and very damp.

Alan