Clear Outside

[Dave Hartwick]

How do you read the Clear Outside app? Please help 

Thanks. 

[Nerf_Caching]

The row labelled "Time" has three colors: Red, Amber and green. The time follows 24-hour clock. Let's say that the time '20' was colored red for a given night. That means that it will be cloudy and unsuitable for stargazing at 8pm. On the other hand, if the time '01' on another given night was shaded green, it will likely be clear at 1am. Amber color means that conditions may not be great, but there may still be gaps in cloud or some thin, high-altitude clouds which may hamper stargazing. Between times '23' and '00' on the interface, you'll notice a red line running vertically under it starting from the row labelled 'Total cloud' all the way down to 'Humidity'. This denotes the border between one day and the next. As with the sunlight row(under time), yellow color denotes daytime, while the shades of blue indicate twilight and black being nighttime. For example, if the black region starts at time '20' and ends at '04', it means that your nighttime will last from 8pm to 4am the next day. For the row under sunlight named 'Moon', it shows us when the moon will be out. This is important for astrophotographers as moonlight washes out faint detail in deep-sky objects. A silver bar indicates when the moon is above the horizon and works in a similar manner to the 'sunlight' row. The four rows underneath show percentages of cloud cover for low, medium, high and total cloud cover for a given time of day. Moving on to ISS row, a space station icon under a given time of day indicates when the ISS will pass over your region. It will look like a moving star across the sky if a pass occurs during nighttime or twilight. The rest of the rows follow a similar concept and the values listed are either percentages, distance(for visibility), units of speed(for wind) or degrees celsius(for temperature). The rows named 'rain' and 'frost' follow similar concept to 'ISS' row. Hope this helps!

Edited March 16, 2021 by Nerf_Caching

[shropshire lad]

25 minutes ago, Dave Hartwick said:

How do you read the Clear Outside app? Please help 

Thanks. 

three greens for tonight London area 9 10 and 11 oclock

 

[shropshire lad]

Green means quite clear, look under each green to see %  0= clear .. 100 means total cloud

 

[StuartT]

Presumably the Bortle for a location doesn't change day to day? (because it's a measure of light pollution). Is that right?

[NGC 1502]

Not a complaint, however Clear Outside can be accurate at times, or completely wrong sometimes.....

Cloud cover forecasts are tough to get right. Much easier to predict are temperature, wind and rain.

I use several online forecasts and try to interpret what they say...I’m 1 of 4 keyholders for one of my club’s dark sites and have to give a go/no-go according to my best guess on cloud cover.  Sometimes I’ll say go, but add a request for club members to check forecasts themselves before deciding to come along.

Of course right now the Covid restrictions don’t allow us to meet up, hopefully after 29th March the “rule of 6” outdoors will allow us to get out under a better sky than in town.

Ed.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

3 hours ago, StuartT said:

Presumably the Bortle for a location doesn't change day to day? (because it's a measure of light pollution). Is that right?

Correct, although l don't know where it gets the data from, or how current it is. If you have a lot of new development going on around you (like I do!), I don't know if the bortle rating is still accurate. 

[PeterCPC]

It said that it would be cloudy last night - it was clear. It said yesterday that tonight would be clear - now says cloudy. I wouldn't put too much faith in it's accuracy.

[Clarkey]

I use Met Office, BBC, Metcheck Astronomy Forecast and Clear Outside. Take an average. Ignore them all and look outside😀

[StuartT]

I agree. Clearoutside is pretty useless. We have clear skies right now, but Clearoutside is showing red!

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

Meteoblue astronomical seeing is another tool in the box.

https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/seeing/london_united-kingdom_2643743

[The Lazy Astronomer]

5 minutes ago, StuartT said:

I agree. Clearoutside is pretty useless. We have clear skies right now, but Clearoutside is showing red!

I always take the forecasts with a pinch of salt. Sometimes it's absolutely spot on, sometimes it's so wildly wrong it's laughable.

There's no substitute for just looking out the window - the only problem with that is that won't tell you what's going to happen in an hour's time!

[NGC 1502]

1 hour ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

I always take the forecasts with a pinch of salt. Sometimes it's absolutely spot on, sometimes it's so wildly wrong it's laughable.

There's no substitute for just looking out the window - the only problem with that is that won't tell you what's going to happen in an hour's time!

 

Indeed just looking out is accurate for that moment......   However if the forecast doesn’t match the sky at that moment then my conclusion is the forecast is rubbish.  If it does match, and several forecasts are in agreement then I start to trust the information.  
 

A big downer is if the sky is actually cloudy, and all forecasts agree and predict full cloud cover for hours, then I cancel a dark site visit, only to be greeted with a crystal clear sky that evening then it’s tear your hair out time 🤬

Ed.

[Stu]

I don’t really trust any forecasts as they are so often wrong. I normally use Sat24 and make my own judgements based on clouds and the direction of movement. It’s normally a better guess than the actual forecasts but can still be wrong. The IR cloud images are not always the clearest, so it’s easier to check during the day and make a call based on that.

[John]

17 minutes ago, Stu said:

I don’t really trust any forecasts as they are so often wrong. I normally use Sat24 and make my own judgements based on clouds and the direction of movement. It’s normally a better guess than the actual forecasts but can still be wrong. The IR cloud images are not always the clearest, so it’s easier to check during the day and make a call based on that.

Sounds a wise approach.

"Clear Outside" was giving me red for most of this evening but my scope is out under a clear sky now as it's been for the past 3 hours. Not complaining though

[Clarkey]

2 minutes ago, John said:

"Clear Outside" was giving me red for most of this evening but my scope is out under a clear sky now as it's been for the past 3 hours. Not complaining though

Same here! Who know what will happen in a few hours. Hey Ho. I'll find out in the morning.

[scotty38]

Rubbish here too in the end. App said no chance but I thought better and set up anyway. I just bought an EAF so needed to set that up anyway and sure enough lovely clear skies, app still saying 90+% cloud... Anyway I got the focuser all set up, target and sequence in NINA all set up and away we go... Well no, guiding not working and then no plate solving but I keep trying with no luck and PHD suggests a snagged cable so thought I'd better go and investigate. All the cables are fine but it's flippin cloudy now, all wet through with dew so packed it all away.

Even though I'd set aside the evening to get the EAF set up it's still disappointing when you cannot make use of a few hours of clear sky. I've only been doing this a couple of months so goodness knows how I'll be in a few years 🤣

[PeterCPC]

Since the 1st January Clear Outside has been accurate in predicting a clear sky here only once. ☹️ There have been quite a few nights which were supposed to be overcast and ended up clear - and wasted. 🤬 Last night included.

[JSeaman]

I found it excellent when it first came out but I don't know what has happened of late, it has been off the mark a lot. I use Clear Outside and the metoffice, if either of them say it's cloudy then that one is right normally. The detailed metoffice forecast of cloud cover is useful. 

I think it's time to pack up and move to Mt Teide

[Spile]

I find it OK most of the time but reviews seem increasingly critical of its accuracy.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.firstlightoptics.clearoutside&hl=en_GB&gl=US&showAllReviews=true

It would appear to rely on the API provided by Dark Sky (now owned by Apple) which will stop working this year.

 

[Seelive]

I haven't found a weather site yet where I can look on the site for the current hour and then look outside and confirm it to be 100% accurate every time.  However, I can look at satellite images and if it looks like there's cloud above me I can almost guarantee it will be cloudy if I look outside. So I tend to look at the images to see which way the clouds are moving and how fast. That way I can only blame myself if I get it wrong 😊

[masjstovel]

I do not agree that Clear Outside is rubbish. 

Like all metrology sites, the certainty drops over time on the forecast. If you check for whats the weather is going to be in one week, then the % is lower for that the forecast would be correct, than if you check the forecast for the next 4 hours (then the certainty is more likely to be more or less correct.)

I find Clear Outside to be one of the better forecasts if i use it like described above. 

The period of the forecasted weather also counts in.

By that I mean if the next 7 days is predicted to be 100% clear skies, then its more likely to be correct forecasted in 3 days, than if it was forecasted to be rainy the next 2 days, clear skies the third day, and then rainy again on day 4 and so on. 

Of course theres times, also when following the above, that Clear Outside says its clear skies right now, but outside its cloudy, but i find it to update itself more often than other sites that i use.

Edited March 19, 2021 by masjstovel

[Sp@ce_d]

It used to be pretty accurate but it does seem to have gone down hill for a while now. Often I see the opposite to its forecast. I suspect the quality of its sources and the general perceived worsening of any clear skies in uk now don’t help making a decent forecast.

 I do what others have said with checking sat24. Luckily I have the Obsy automated & the Cloudwatcher ultimately makes the decision but even that needs tweaking as the season changes.

[StuartT]

Once again, clearoutside is completely wrong! It’s a perfectly clear sky and here is what it shows 

[doublevodka]

From what I've seen so far this year, forecasting accuracy issues aren't just down to clearoutside it seems all services are struggling to keep up with the weather and it's strange behavior

My gut says the forecasting models being used are struggling to cope with the effects of climate change

Maybe FLO should start selling these for observatory installation? 😉