Grim Forecast

[Paul M]

I know weather is always in the SGL news but this year has been dreadful for me. Maybe 3 or 4 sessions since the spring

The Met O 10 day trend offers no comfort. 

I've been brooding over a major scope/mount upgrade for much of the year. But I just can't justify it at my current dark sky rate!

 

 

[Rapallokid]

☹️

[Grant]

We need a few good frosty nights 🙂

[Paul M]

2 minutes ago, Grant said:

We need a few good frosty nights 🙂

Don't we just. 

Telescopes and tech aside, I have fond memories of frosty December nights and the Gemenid meteor shower! Them were the day's, 70's and 80's. 

Mind, I had youthful light buckets for eyes back then. Nowadays I'm just happy to see Orion! 

[Grant]

Just now, Paul M said:

Don't we just. 

Telescopes and tech aside, I have fond memories of frosty December nights and the Gemenid meteor shower! Them were the day's, 70's and 80's. 

Mind, I had youthful light buckets for eyes back then. Nowadays I'm just happy to see Orion! 

Some of the best nights I can remember where when the telescope tube itself had frost on it - they always seem the clearest, sharpest nights I guess because all of the moisture falls out of the air?

[Paul M]

Just now, Grant said:

Some of the best nights I can remember where when the telescope tube itself had frost on it - they always seem the clearest, sharpest nights I guess because all of the moisture falls out of the air?

I know imagers ( I think that includes me now!) don't like those nights too much. Convective atmosphere and even the planets are twinkling! But I agree. As a boy I remember my feet freezing to the ground as I stood looking through my Prinz 60mm refractor. I pulled up tufts of grass as I freed myself

But then, the house was freezing cold. Ice inside my bedroom windows. Bed sheets damp with condensation. Can't have it both ways!

[ONIKKINEN]

Slightly frosty is much better than barely above 0 and very dew heavy weather for sure. Transparency is usually a little bit better and seeing settles down, but this applies only if the weather has been a steady frosty for a while, sudden drops in temperature always bring bad seeing so a nightly drop to -5 from +5 is generally bad news. If its very cold for longer than one night, seeing can also be very good and steady. Im talking -20 cold in this case where the air is bone dry even at "max humidity" because cold air just doesn't hold water all that much. Those nights are also very rare, as usually winter clear nights are a one off followed by a week of cloud on both sides of the brief clear night, so usually these very cold nights are also accompanied by bad seeing if the temperature dropped by 10 or more degrees in the past 24 hours.

[Fegato]

It's certainly been a bit rubbish here the last few weeks. A forecast of two clear nights today and tomorrow has now collapsed into a few clear spells tomorrow if I'm lucky. Us astronomers / astrophotographers are supposed to look forward to the winter - but despite the short nights, I certainly get more action in the summer, and sometimes I wonder if I actually get more total imaging time then too!

[DaveS]

Yep, Clear Outside and Met Office both had clear sky for the whole of tomorrow night, but now CO has gone to a mix of orange and red, just waiting for MO to do the same.

And nothing useable for as far as the forecasts run.

[Mr Spock]

By eck it's grim up north. Nothing but cloud here all this lunation. Forecast looks the same too 

[scotty1]

This is just my view

Tonight should have clear intervals for southern areas, closest to the south coast the better.

Tomorrow night should have clear spells for central southern areas and midlands and eastern England. Cloudy weather moving east and reaching the east coast mid morning 

[Paul M]

There have been a few lovely clear days here over the last few months but like clockwork, it's clouded out at or soon after sunset

I did get a session last week. Clear all night a few days after Full Moon so I set up for imaging Mars. I got some results but not worth sharing. All in all I wasted the night on trying to improve my planetary imaging skills but just went backwards! 

Shoulda, coulda picked a nice Globular or maybe picked a fast moving asteroid to do a time-lapse sequence on. Stuff I'm ok at. 

After a long and exceptionally dry summer the rain gods are fighting back ! It's getting that I'm forgetting how to set up and get going! 

I know, I know, we'll get a break eventually

[WolfieGlos]

Tonight was supposed to be clear over here. It was a really clear afternoon so thought the forecast was wrong.

Set the scope up, framed the Veil perfectly just as it hit astro dark.... set up guiding....then the cloud rolled in 🤬 After a half hour, I gave up, brought it in and now its raining. Rain isn't even in my forecast 🤷‍♂️

Fingers crossed tomorrow night is still clear, BBC weather app shows it perfectly clear yet Clear Skies is now suggesting it wont be clear until circa 1am. Typical British weather, haven't imaged (in the UK) since September !

I just wish this was real..... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/misc/zarkov-cloud-gun.html

[pipnina]

I've had one or two semi-ok opportunities recently, tonight even could have been one, and possibly tomorrow.

Sadly, what with the outdoor humidity being 95%, anything outside starts dripping almost instantly... And the dew heaters I ordered two+ weeks back still haven't dispatched!

Amazon has chemical hand warmer packs though, and while I despise single-use waste, I feel a need to have *something* to keep my scope dry!

I'm also patiently waiting for a change to use the skywatcher OIII and UHC filters I received at the same time I ordered the dew heaters and focuser replacement for my refractor. Hoping to spot the horsy this winter, and the NAN before time runs out as it is sinking!

Mind, if we wanted good weather, we'd pretty much have to move to a mountain range desert somewhere... There aren't many places on earth (where humans live) that AREN'T cloudy right now! (as per https://darksky.net/forecast/40.7127,-74.0059/si12/en)

[pipnina]

In fact, we can even take some relief that the global cloud cover is so bad right now, even Paranal observatory is clouded out slightly! (they have over 300 clear nights a year!)

[Fegato]

Well, after getting slowly worse here, the forecast for tonight has now gone back the other way and is looking half decent. Am I getting excited too early? Probably, but the scope is in place and my fingers are crossed 🤞

[wookie1965]

I got a 10" celestron starsense a few weeks ago and not had chance take it out, the forecast for the next 10 days is rubbish as per. 

[Knighty2112]

 Pretty sure this guy was an astronomer too screaming at the clouds overhead for the umpteenth time!  

 

[Alan White]

I have to say, the weather is often grim when I am available and able to observe.
Somehow though each 4am when I take my bathroom trip (I am over 50) the sky always looks great,
So a quick half awake glance is often had from the hall or bedroom window.

But indeed it was always clear in my youth, just walked ouside and conditions were perfect.....
or were they? Somehow,  I do believe we look back with slightly tinted spectacles.

[WolfieGlos]

Finally, clear skies here! Not even any wind. Already have an hour of subs, fingers crossed the CS app of red/orange until midnight is wrong…like it’s saying for me right now 😄

[DaveS]

Hoping that the MO forecast is correct, as I have started a long sequence that could run pretty much until the end of Astro dark.

[Paul M]

Minging here all day. Just back from a long run and froze going into the wind and rain then boiled when the wind was on my back. Not quite cold enough yet for winter gear!

It's a classic N. Westerly shower set up. A long fetch down the North Channel drives unstable air and showers towards the Lancashire and Merseyside coast and into the Manchester hollow and through the Cheshire Gap . Miraculously I dodged all the rain today on my 90 mile round trip to Bolton for confined space refresher training. 

Convection is dying down now;

[pipnina]

Clouds are a bit dodgy here and there, but pictures are about to start rolling in for me!

Sadly something still isn't right with the scope, despite recent works, but it may just be backspacing or even need for a higher quality flattener...

[Mr Spock]

Having looked out the window at the rain, I can confirm the existence of that blue patch dead centre... 😜

[Ratlet]

We've had a 'bit' of rain recently.

I bought my scope at the beginning of July and didn't get a clear night till the end of August.

I'm an opportunist now.  I can get by on about 6 hours of sleep and my rotation means I've got 2 weeks days, 2 weeks off then 2 weeks nights. 6 to 6.

If I'm on days and it looks promising or I wake up early I've been outside at 0200.  If I'm on nights I've taken my binos in the car and stopped in lay-bys on the way home.  I might throw the scope in now it's proper dark in the morning.