Who Has A Clear Sky Tonight ?

[saac]

10 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

El Nino has been bringing rain and clouds constantly. 

This morning was the first time I could even see the sun on a day off. I did manage a half hour to look at the activity on Sol.

Now the Moon and Jupiter are directly overhead and the sky is covered with high clouds to thick to view thru.

Only good thing is it's in the 60's F.

60F that is  shorts and T shirt weather here - I dream of being able to do astronomy in those conditions, that is the proper way  

Jim

[jjohnson3803]

After three weeks of garbage skies and snow (maybe closer to four weeks, I've lost count), it might clear up a bit tonight or early tomorrow morning.  Unfortunately, it's also predicted to be -4°F.  And the weather service said El Nino was going to keep us warmer and dryer than usual.  🤪

[Mr Spock]

Isha is peeking...

[Ouroboros]

I really thought it was going to be clear here tonight. I was about to set up when I looked at the satellite picture onky to see clouds closing in from the north west. Duh! 

[DaveS]

Total cloud here, but with the devil's lightbulb polluting the sky there would be no point anyway.

[Ouroboros]

I was set for a bit of dual narrow band but … nope …… cloud. 

[Soupir94]

On 19/01/2024 at 17:18, Mr Spock said:

Isha is peeking...

Isha is here and we are being battered. Red alert until 21.00. Doubt I will venture outside.

[maw lod qan]

I was finally able to get out for about an hour, observing the Moon.

With it having been a work day, I quickly ran out of gad and went to bed.

[Xilman]

Might be clear here later. Roughly 50% cloud cover but very windy. Wind generally makes for lousy seeing, sometimes as bad as 20 arcsec!

[Mr Spock]

Clear sky? That would be a big no...

Forecast for Sheffield

And at my location:

Howling gale and 9.5° 

 

[Marvin Jenkins]

My report from SW France would say.... Very still and stable. -2 with a ground frost.

Should be amazing, but there is a super thin covering of mackerel cloud with the moon generating a great halo.

So close yet so far.

Marv

[Swoop1]

Nice and clear in Marlow so grabbing first light on my new to me ZWO ASI533MC PRO.

Going to grab a couple of runs of lunar, hit the t.v quizzes then bust out the 72ED to see if I can work PHD2

[bosun21]

It was clear skies here in Oxford so I set up my HEQ5 and Vixen ED102 for its first light. Immediately after setting up the clouds rolled in completely filling the sky. I only managed a few minutes on the moon before it was obscured. Brought everything back indoors and ten minutes later the clouds completely departed. Sods law strikes again.

[Ouroboros]

5 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

It was clear skies here in Oxford so I set up my HEQ5 and Vixen ED102 for its first light. Immediately after setting up the clouds rolled in completely filling the sky. I only managed a few minutes on the moon before it was obscured. Brought everything back indoors and ten minutes later the clouds completely departed. Sods law strikes again.

I was thinking of doing the same here given the beautiful blue skies this afternoon. Even the BBC website forecast clear for hours tonight. Then I checked the satellite and rain radar pictures and realised it was not gonna be like that.  hey Ho! 

[saac]

Calm before the 2nd storm here tonight after yesterday's hammering we are now awaiting Storm Jocelyn. I guess we are paying for last week's good run.  On the positive side - it can only get better  

Jim 

[saac]

Here's a thought! It would be nice to have a map of the UK where we could say drop a pin or similar to show on a daily basis if we have clear sky and are observing or imaging.  If each night could be saved then we would have a UK record for the year where maybe the pages could be played in movie mode so we can see the changing pattern and average activity across the year.  Ok so it's cloudy here and I have nothing better to do than think of this type of thing lol.  So over to the clever talented people of SGL who can do web design/coding  

Jim 

[Sunshine]

7 hours ago, saac said:

Here's a thought! It would be nice to have a map of the UK where we could say drop a pin or similar to show on a daily basis if we have clear sky and are observing or imaging.  If each night could be saved then we would have a UK record for the year where maybe the pages could be played in movie mode so we can see the changing pattern and average activity across the year.  Ok so it's cloudy here and I have nothing better to do than think of this type of thing lol.  So over to the clever talented people of SGL who can do web design/coding  

Jim 

Oh wow I love this idea! If i may expand on this. It would be great if one could see all the continents on a map here on SGL and see where others are observing. Maybe we would select a pull down tab and select our status which reflects live on the map, that would be neat. Though I am willing to bet the vast majority of pins would be in the UK, it would still be fun to see where we all are located.

[Zermelo]

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Oh wow I love this idea! If i may expand on this. It would be great if one could see all the continents on a map here on SGL and see where others are observing. Maybe we would select a pull down tab and select our status which reflects live on the map, that would be neat. Though I am willing to bet the vast majority of pins would be in the UK, it would still be fun to see where we all are located.

I believe it's not that difficult to create this sort of geodata mashup these days, using services exposed on websites. Then there's a similar function built into SkySafari, and possibly other apps, that let's you share your observing session with others. I've not felt the need so far, and I imagine some won't want to share their locations, but it would be interesting to have a map showing in real time the locations where some active observing is taking place.

[saac]

4 hours ago, Zermelo said:

I believe it's not that difficult to create this sort of geodata mashup these days, using services exposed on websites. Then there's a similar function built into SkySafari, and possibly other apps, that let's you share your observing session with others. I've not felt the need so far, and I imagine some won't want to share their locations, but it would be interesting to have a map showing in real time the locations where some active observing is taking place.

I had wondered if the likes of Google Maps offered something that could easily be adapted to do this - I know for example that you can embed Google Maps into a web page.  Re sharing location, yep I can see how that would be sensitive, I certainly wouldn't like to drop a pin on my home coordinates! So with that in mind, I thought the location could be at say county level (Local Authority/State etc) rather than anything that could reveal a more precise location.   Here's a thought maybe one of the web sites that allow you to upload data from a home weather station would be suitable.  The idea is just to have a quick visual indication of where it is clear and observation activity. 

Jim 

Edited January 23 by saac