A bit of a cloudy night

[SwiMatt]

I went out despite a forecast much less than optimal, but cloud coverage will be even worse for the whole week and I was getting desperate for some action, after 4 weeks without a proper session...

I set up the Mak 127 at around 21.45, with fast moving clouds covering 90% of the sky. Between the clouds, every couple of minutes, I could see the three stars of the summer triangle, but never the whole triangle at once. Furthermore, when the clouds opened up for a moment, no other star was visible, due to the light pollution reflected by the surrounding clouds and the occasional appearance of the Moon behind my back. However, when I managed to point at and check Vega, the seeing looked good enough. My app said that clouds would decrease in ome hour and it wasn't too cold (although windy): so I decided to stay and wait it out.

The first hour was cheer frustration: three times I managed to lock on Epsilon Lyrae, three times the clouds covered my view before I could pop in the BST 15mm with barlow. Then, with some patience and a lot of swearing, came the right window: two minutes of clear patch of sky! I didn't waste it, at 200x I finally see Epsilon Lyrae fully split for the first time (it's an observation that I attempted twice before, I never managed to split Epsilon 1). At that point, after the cloud cover came back, my mind rushed: maybe if I only waited a few minutes I could manage to see some of the easy targets on my noob list, such as M27, M39, Albireo,...

After some time though, the frustration got the best of me. I felt that the weather would not improve (spoiler: I was right). But before leaving I decided to officially kick off my Lunar 100, since the Moon could be locked on easily between the clouds, and even though it keeped getting obscured, at least I managed a few breathtaking views focusing on Mare Imbrium, Copernicus crater and Tycho crater. So good looking with 200x! The Apennines (L4) were not so obvious in the almost full Moon: a clear strip delimiting the South-East border of the Mare, but without looking too imposing. In this light, it's not clear why it comes before the big craters in the Lunar 100 list (I understand once I get home and check for some professional pictures). But I look forward to continuing this adventure and see how the Moon features change with the phases. To my surprise I even managed to snap a few pictures with my phone. 

All in all, a frustrating night with a couple of quick glorious moments. When I did to scuba diving we used to say that to become a real good diver one needs to [removed word] up several times in the water. I guess that to become a real astronomer, one needs to spend a few frustrating nights hoping to see something...

In the picture: detail of the Moon centered around Copernicus, taken with the BST 15 mm, at 100x. (Nothing professional, sorry 🤓)

[davhei]

Swearing aside, it does sound like you had an enjoyable evening after all.

Remembering the cloudy less than perfect nights make the really good ones that much sweeter!

[Paz]

 

I was out recently under almost complete cloud cover having been overly optimistic about the weather and was about to pack up when I got onto  eta cassiopiea in a gap and I sat at the eyepiece and observed, the brightness varied as the cloud came back and I looked up and naked eye it was 100% cloud cover and no stars visible but the doublen was still there in the eyepiece so I carried on for 5 minutes or more on this double whilst Cassiopea was completely invisible until it was too thick and I lost it in the eyepiece.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Paz

[SwiMatt]

3 hours ago, davhei said:

Swearing aside, it does sound like you had an enjoyable evening after all.

Remembering the cloudy less than perfect nights make the really good ones that much sweeter!

I think we can say that I created a good memory out of a frustrating night.

In particular it was the first time that I really took a bit of time with the Moon and that was worth the previous swearing!

[josefk]

Star hopping against passing cloud is an exercise in zen (zen? stoic?) resilience. It makes you a better person (or something like that) 🤣