Clear nights spoilt by thin cloud

[Second Time Around]

Here in East Kent so many forecast clear nights over the last couple of months have been spoilt by thin cloud.  It's been so much so that I've been losing typically 2-3 magnitudes.

It's been showing up on infrared satellite images, and sometimes looking through my night vision device shows otherwise invisible broken cloud rather like a thin mackerel sky.

Has anyone else found the same this autumn/winter?  If so, whereabouts are you?

[Knighty2112]

Been pretty much the same here in East Yorkshire as well. Slim pickens lately apart from the moon and planets.

[wulfrun]

Yes, quite a few times! Stick your head out for a quick look and think "ooh look, stars, that's promising". Then go out properly for a bit longer and think "maybe not then" when you realise only the brightest are poking through.

[Ratlet]

Had it once for definite. M42 looked absolute garbage and just came in lol.

 

[jjohnson3803]

Here in northeastern Illinois, I think there have been two partly clear nights since December 3.  There have been a few more where the sky was covered with high cirrus making the moon for example look like it was swathed in cotton gauze.  My home naked eye limiting magnitude is about 3.5, maybe 4 if I'm lucky, but I couldn't even see Polaris through the high schmutz the other morning...

 

[TheThing]

Every.Time! I get all excited about a clear night and the high cloud spoils it. Haven't had a proper clear night for weeks. 

🙄

 

 

 

[cajen2]

Last night was the same for me. Took a look, shivered and came back in! 😱

[skybadger]

I'm glad it's not me being precious about what makes a good clear night worth taking images on. 

So I've been using it to hone technique and practice setup of imaging.

Always worth a pint if it's clear. If only to find out where focus is 

 

 

[AMcD]

I have had this experience regularly recently.  It looks clear to the eye but when I fire up the all sky camera on the observatory there is a clear pall of high cloud.  I then try to resit the temptation of imaging anyway, knowing I will regret it when I come to processing the integrations 🙄

[Mandy D]

Well, that explains why Jupiter's moons are sloshing around in a swimming pool these past few nights. I've tried a couple of times with the 200P to image Jupiter, but cannot get anything other than a messy blob. I got much better results on the Sun today, than I've had on anything for more than a week.

 

This was the best I got tonight with the D3200 on the 200P.

[7170]

On 09/01/2023 at 18:15, Second Time Around said:

Here in East Kent so many forecast clear nights over the last couple of months have been spoilt by thin cloud.  It's been so much so that I've been losing typically 2-3 magnitudes.

It's been showing up on infrared satellite images, and sometimes looking through my night vision device shows otherwise invisible broken cloud rather like a thin mackerel sky.

Has anyone else found the same this autumn/winter?  If so, whereabouts are you?

Yes I have noted this a number of times over the last few months. Also, just as prevalent has been thin cloud (cirrus type clouds I think) drifting over around midnight spoiling an otherwise perfect evening.

Here in SW London (right on the outskirts) we have actually had a good number of clear evenings that ended up clouding over around midnight. The number of nights that it has been completely clear all night recently has been low.

[Cyril]

We had some really clear late night skies recently, only problem was the temperature, minus 7 is far too cold for my old bones.