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Who to believe?


Stu

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23 minutes ago, Laurieast said:

On 6 February 2018, BBC Weather changed supplier from the government Met Office to MeteoGroup, after being required to put its weather services out to tender. Wikipedia

🙂

That's interesting..someone in my family is starting work at the Met Office in November!

He has a PHD in Quantum Physics and has been doing post doc theoretical research on Brown Dwarfs and other exotica for several years..I will have to urge him to push the night sky agenda up the pecking order!😁

Dave

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BBC use Meteo for weather since the tender.
To be honest most of the forecast services are well off, perhaps the weather is just not following the modelling,
We know how good modelling can be, just look at all the various predicitions for the recent plague.....say no more.

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I find scope nights very accurate on cloud cover. Estimate of seeing can be off however.

It's hard to model local weather and the atmosphere at a local level, you would need to use micro metrological model which are are given by so many local factors, and need a super computer cluster to match.
 

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34 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

I find scope nights very accurate on cloud cover. Estimate of seeing can be off however.

It's hard to model local weather and the atmosphere at a local level, you would need to use micro metrological model which are are given by so many local factors, and need a super computer cluster to match.
 

Met Office has the computers and always seems to be upgrading...

Re local weather, I agree. Exeter's prevailing weathr comes from the SW, but Dartmoor has a role in what actually reaches us. Regular drives to Plymouth for weather sensitive activities shows this very well. Thankfully webcams help.

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1 hour ago, TerraC said:

the little coastal village of West Bexington

That's on my list to try. The light pollution map site says it's the best spot around these parts:

Capture.JPG.0b48744b77ecdfefb96b5d8d1426a997.JPG

1 hour ago, UKDiver said:

sometimes they could not get a very short term forecast right if they looked out of the window!

It seems to happen very regularly - I refresh CO at 6p.m. and it may be forecasting a clear evening later on, but says that it's completely clouded over at the moment. But outside, there isn't a cloud in the sky, so do I believe its forecast for later?

 

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1 hour ago, F15Rules said:

That's interesting..someone in my family is starting work at the Met Office in November!

He has a PHD in Quantum Physics and has been doing post doc theoretical research on Brown Dwarfs and other exotica for several years..I will have to urge him to push the night sky agenda up the pecking order!😁

Dave

It's a big place, but sadly on a large industrial estate. The original building has a stream running through, part of the building climate control. I've not been in the extension yet. They support a fair few local groups/professional bodies as part of their social charter. I lost a team member to them a couple of years ago, that'll learn me to encourage a school leaver to get into data science! Some odd characters there too, make stereotypical mad scientist look like cosplay. ;)

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8 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

That's on my list to try. The light pollution map site says it's the best spot around these parts:

Capture.JPG.0b48744b77ecdfefb96b5d8d1426a997.JPG

It seems to happen very regularly - I refresh CO at 6p.m. and it may be forecasting a clear evening later on, but says that it's completely clouded over at the moment. But outside, there isn't a cloud in the sky, so do I believe its forecast for later?

 

West Bexington looks good. Predicted to be slightly darker on CO that Seatown which is my closest coastal observing spot, still to be tried out. WB is about 45 mins, Seatown 35 mins for me.

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5 minutes ago, UKDiver said:

It's a big place, but sadly on a large industrial estate. The original building has a stream running through, part of the building climate control. I've not been in the extension yet. They support a fair few local groups/professional bodies as part of their social charter. I lost a team member to them a couple of years ago, that'll learn me to encourage a school leaver to get into data science! Some odd characters there too, make stereotypical mad scientist look like cosplay. ;)

He'll fit in like a glove then!😂😂

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1 minute ago, Stu said:

West Bexington looks good. Predicted to be slightly darker on CO that Seatown which is my closest coastal observing spot, still to be tried out. WB is about 45 mins, Seatown 35 mins for me.

That's almost as dark as @jetstream backyard viewing and also where my wives relatives live's in heart of Wales.
Interested to know what more you can see with your LZOS over your backyard? 
I suspect lots more and is it worth taking the Dob over as well compared to the LZOS? 

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18 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

That's on my list to try. The light pollution map site says it's the best spot around these parts:

Capture.JPG.0b48744b77ecdfefb96b5d8d1426a997.JPG

 

 

Literally nothing in the way until you reach France so the Milky Way looked awesome.   Drive right down until you reach the seafront car park, there is a small wall and railings and the beach in front of you.  There is a cafe/restaurant down there with outdoor uplighters but they switched them all off around 11:30pm so it was really nice and dark.  I could see a weather front moving in on the channel so battled with a little bit of a breeze from the sea as it is open and flat.  Probably need to be there on a nice calm night.   Views are certainly worth it though. 

Ray

 

 

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I'm sure glad that I did not go with the "Clear Outside" forecast last night which showed heavy cloud cover from around 8:00 pm onwards.

In the end it stayed hazy but clear through to the early hours. Transparency was poor but I was not interested in DSO's with the Io transit plus a full moon in the sky.

The seeing could have been better at times but overall it was a very good session to have my LZOS 130 out :icon_biggrin:

I'm generally happy to take what I can get from my back garden rather than travelling. Over the years I've done pretty well all in all with my refractors and my 12 inch dob from here :icon_biggrin:

 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, TerraC said:

 

Literally nothing in the way until you reach France so the Milky Way looked awesome.   Drive right down until you reach the seafront car park, there is a small wall and railings and the beach in front of you.  There is a cafe/restaurant down there with outdoor uplighters but they switched them all off around 11:30pm so it was really nice and dark.  I could see a weather front moving in on the channel so battled with a little bit of a breeze from the sea as it is open and flat.  Probably need to be there on a nice calm night.   Views are certainly worth it though. 

Ray

 

 

Thanks Ray, that's useful to know.

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4 hours ago, Deadlake said:

That's almost as dark as @jetstream backyard viewing and also where my wives relatives live's in heart of Wales.
Interested to know what more you can see with your LZOS over your backyard? 
I suspect lots more and is it worth taking the Dob over as well compared to the LZOS? 

If possible get an SQM-L and take it to these dark site to confirm the darkness levels. Stu's 16" dob will perform so well under dark skies its not funny, on everything.It will begin to show the dark lane cutting the gulf area in half in the NAN for instance as well as the Pelicans Head. Wait until @Stu gets the dob on the Flame neb, next to Alnitak, under these skies. I was watching a highly detailed view of the Pacman neb the other night in the 15", a view that the TSA120 cannot give because of its aperture.

IMHO.

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4 hours ago, jetstream said:

If possible get an SQM-L and take it to these dark site to confirm the darkness levels. Stu's 16" dob will perform so well under dark skies its not funny, on everything.It will begin to show the dark lane cutting the gulf area in half in the NAN for instance as well as the Pelicans Head. Wait until @Stu gets the dob on the Flame neb, next to Alnitak, under these skies. I was watching a highly detailed view of the Pacman neb the other night in the 15", a view that the TSA120 cannot give because of its aperture.

IMHO.

I will do Gerry, I promise! I’ll likely pop down with the Genesis for a widefield session first to see how it is down there, then will definitely take the dob down there.

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