Holy cow, did you see the weather forecast😭😭😭?

[M40]

On 27/12/2023 at 17:58, Chaz2b said:

Someone could get into a whole heap of trouble with talk like that! Lol
I’m thinking of stopping my Cloud Appreciation Society membership….aaaah!

Do you think reverse psychology would work? 

I am so pleased we have clouds so I can take many many many pictures of grey clouds; us amateur cloud gazers are so fortunate we dont have clear skies 😀 

[Mr Spock]

It's looking drier and colder but I don't really see any clear skies 

[bosun21]

Haha, what’s this? Not until Tuesday though. I ain’t going to be holding my breath though.

 

 

[WolfieGlos]

3 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Haha, what’s this? Not until Tuesday though. I ain’t going to be holding my breath though.

 

 

Same ole **** different year it seems!!

Our forecast has changed in the last 24 hours. Only yesterday it was predicting most of next week to be clear. Last night, it changed to Monday+Tuesday and then Saturday and Sunday (typical as I'm away on the weekend....).

Now, todays forecast? Tuesday and Wednesday, partly Saturday and rain on Sunday. I mean...it's so changeable, I think it'll be putting our heads to the windows every night it "might" be clear 😕

[M40]

I'm not unduly concerned as I have plenty to be getting on with, I have been doing the collimation on the skymax, nearly there, ijust need to do a star test...... oh wait.....

[DaveS]

I've stopped planning ahead, even from morning to evening, the weather changes so quickly, but almost never for the better.

This is the wrong part of the world for astronomy.

[Bugdozer]

3 hours ago, M40 said:

I'm not unduly concerned as I have plenty to be getting on with, I have been doing the collimation on the skymax, nearly there, ijust need to do a star test...... oh wait.....

There's a website somewhere that constantly accumulates UK weather data and then crosschecks it against the forecast from 24 hours before (I think). It shows that forecasts are accurate around 30% of the time, which is pathetic, really. You might as well just guess. 

[Ed in UK]

Glad to see that someone, somewhere is having clear skies.....

 

[uhb1966]

23 hours ago, M40 said:

Do you think reverse psychology would work? 

I am so pleased we have clouds so I can take many many many pictures of grey clouds; us amateur cloud gazers are so fortunate we dont have clear skies 😀 

I was thinking about entering a cloud video in the nifty 50 challenge

[PeterStudz]

What is this blue stuff in the sky?! I haven’t seen a clear blue sky since the autumn. Of course it’s daytime and it’ll probably be cloudy tonight but it’s a start.

Just setting up for a bit of white light solar. It’s a while since I’ve done any of that.

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

More frustration oop North. A beautiful start to the day, crescent moon gleaming.  I thought too, at least I can get out the PST. Now mostly clouded, no clear sun and none expected, just clouds then rain again tonight. I hope your area stays clear for you.

[tomato]

9 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

What is this blue stuff in the sky?! I haven’t seen a clear blue sky since the autumn. Of course it’s daytime and it’ll probably be cloudy tonight but it’s a start.

Just setting up for a bit of white light solar. It’s a while since I’ve done any of that.

Well, I had a sky like that as the sun went down, set up for a 9 hour (yes, 9 hours) imaging run, got the first hour safely in then set up TeamViewer on the Ally Sky Cam so I could monitor the next few hours in the warm.

First image to greet me on the iPad was this:

 

The cloud radar still looks good? so I’ll try and restart the session but this isn’t funny anymore.

[WolfieGlos]

More reason for that remote imaging ey @tomato ?

Our sky was mixed all day, matching the forecast. I went to bed at 4 feeling a bit rubbish, woke up fine at 7:30pm with clear skies! What?! This wasn’t in the forecast!

Quickly convinced the wife to cook food, I set up the rig, ran autofocus… slewed to target and the cloud rolled over right as phd2 was settling before the first sub…and our meal was ready.

All of the apps I look at, including the met office cloud forecast, show I have clear skies tomorrow night, Tuesday and Wednesday. Let’s see what happens.

[900SL]

Clear sky here but at these temperatures I'm pretty sure I'll have gear issues, so it's another log on the fire

[tomato]

11 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

More reason for that remote imaging hey @tomato ?

Yes, I will team up with @Tomatobro at some point and dip our toes in the remote imaging pool, but I’ve allocated most of my Q1 Astro budget to upgrading my visual scope.  With our climate, you could argue that doesn’t make much sense, but you can work on modifying scopes even when it’s cloudy.😉

I’ve looked into going the whole hog and relocating some of my kit to a really remote site in Chile, but you need very deep pockets for this, I just can’t bring myself to not having some kit in my own backyard.

PS, I got about 2 x 80 mins last night so it wasn’t a total write off.

[WolfieGlos]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

I’ve looked into going the whole hog and relocating some of my kit to a really remote site in Chile, but you need very deep pockets for this, I just can’t bring myself to not having some kit in my own backyard.

PS, I got about 2 x 80 mins last night so it wasn’t a total write off.

Chile? Wow, that would be an exceptional place! What’s the deal if a piece of equipment (say a camera) dies? Would you have to buy the replacement and then fly over to install it yourself? If so then that’s another cost factor to consider, flights out there must be in the region of £1500 or so.

Of course, if you go for it and go over go set it all up then a visit to the VLT would have to be on the cards too…

Ah nice, I did look out later and it was patchy at best so perhaps it cleared here in the early hours. Oh well.

[tomato]

There is a good video on the Astro Imaging Channel about an imager’s (John Hayes) experience of setting up and running a rig in Chile.

You are exactly right, he recommends spares be on site for all of the critical items, (cameras, filter wheels, EAFs etc) as the downtime and cost of shipping is horrendous. He reckons on spending about 25-30% of the new price value of your rig to get it safely shipped to site, add on the annual running costs (~10K USD) plus the costs and logistics of paying your kit a visit, it’s a very serious commitment indeed. And at the end, nobody ships their kit back, they either donate it to a University etc. or sell it to another remote imager. That would be the only way I could get into it, but I would have to sell all of my gear at home and then some to fund it.😒

But oh man, the skies and the images are something to behold.

[DaveS]

I was discussing this with Rupert at Astrograph, and he said that Chile charges you VAT even on kit you already own when you import it.

Meanwhile, I have an unexpected clear slot so getting more Luminance data on HCG 10, just a sneaky 3 hours.

[tomato]

2 hours ago, DaveS said:

I was discussing this with Rupert at Astrograph, and he said that Chile charges you VAT even on kit you already own when you import it.

Meanwhile, I have an unexpected clear slot so getting more Luminance data on HCG 10, just a sneaky 3 hours.

Yes, and their customs officers are very well briefed on the nature and value of astro imaging kit, so you are rolling the dice if you try to go light on the values you declare on the shipping paperwork.

[DaveS]

The clear slot has unexpectedly increased to all night, at least according to the Met Office, so added 6 hours Luminance on HCG 35, and 2 hours on Copeland's Septet to take it up to dawn. I may lose some data to passing cloud, hopefully not too much.

[Ed in UK]

Being stuck over towards the east coast is proving a bit frustrating at the moment.

Hopefully tomorrow night I'll finally be able to get out.

@Mr Spock Hopefully clear skies for you too 🙂(Finally). 

 

[Dark Adaptation]

Well, I went and looked at my weather forecast for the week. The resulting predictions did not look astronomy-friendly, and I was about to be seriously annoyed. Then I remembered that stargazing means going outside, and going outside means getting cold, and being cold is uncomfortable.

Maybe I can just pretend I'm stargazing from the comfort of my warm bed.

[wheresthetorch?]

Clear night tonight on the south coast.  Heading outside shortly, but it's pretty chilly out there! 

[WolfieGlos]

Not only chilly, but windy. Whilst I’m imaging, I have quite a high scrappage rate from the gusts. Seeing isn’t great either, but as it’s the first clear night in a long time…I don’t feel like I can be picky 😐

[mcrowle]

Been lucky enough to have had a full week of mainly clear skies here in mid Cornwall, though the clouds have returned now.

The wind gusts caught me by surprise on Wednesday evening, though. I clearly hadn't paid enough attention to the forecast, and had set up my 12" Newtonian to image M42. Typically my Total RMS error is around 0.6", but Tuesday it was 2.5"! I've deleted the worst frames, but am hoping to salvage something from the rest 🤞.

Regards, Mike.

Edited January 12 by mcrowle