Sessions in 2024. Per month ongoing ?? Your stats please !!

[Telescope40]

Hello all.  Thought it might be a bit of wheez and might help get this sometimes frustrating hobby of ours into perspective given the wonderful weather we have here in the British Isles.  Please note that overseas contributions are more than welcome and may add a different point of view / flavour but no gloating, please. 🤣 

We all have wonderful gear that sometimes gets underused and this can drive us all at times to a state of apathy.  The thread may turn into a bit of a monster so apologies to the  Mods / admin if a version 2 is needed by tomorrow. 🤣   Here we go as I am now keeping a log of time under clear skies  !!   

Days in the month -January - 31

Clear nights - 6 

Sessions - 4 

Might be just me but I'm thinking January 2024 went rather well in comparison to the whole of 2023.        John 

[saac]

Yep Jan was kind. I had a run of 5 clear nights in succession used 4 of them to capture 10 hours on the garnet star.  With the moon bright in the sky I did some visual on the remaining clear nights  - I reckon we had a good run of at least 10 clear nights throughout Jan.  Come on Feb you have a lot to live up to  

Jim 

[JeremyS]

2 hours ago, saac said:

Yep Jan was kind. I had a run of 5 clear nights in succession used 4 of them to capture 10 hours on the garnet star.  With the moon bright in the sky I did some visual on the remaining clear nights  - I reckon we had a good run of at least 10 clear nights throughout Jan.  Come on Feb you have a lot to live up to  

Jim 

And an extra day in which to pull it off 😊

[saac]

2 hours ago, JeremyS said:

And an extra day in which to pull it off 😊

I've just looked at the calendar and it falls on a Thursday - that's a weekday so an extra day at work  

Jim 

[Paul M]

I got 2 sessions in January. 

My problem is currency. I'm not using my gear frequently enough get proficincy and when it is clear, all plans go out of the window as I scramble to grab some subs. I didn't even tweak my collimation last time as I'd be pomising myself I would, and it really showed in the subs. Then I forget some feature in APT or how to do something simple...

Seriously, I'm already worrying about the nights getting shorter and the summer hiatus being upon us! 🤪

 

[IB20]

5 or 6 sessions in Jan I think, compared to 0 in December. Had nights with the 3”, 4”, 5” fracs and 8” dob.

Despite all evenings being blighted by full moons, strong breezes, poor local seeing or freezing temps it was still nice to be out! Much prefer that to the month of cloud and rain we suffered in December.

[dobbie]

3 times since December  only with 6" newt 😒

[DirkSteele]

2 sessions in January thanks to work and family commitments but it felt like there were a very high number of clear nights. Shame some of them were so chilly! Including one of my nights.

[Stu]

A surprising eight sessions in Jan for me.  Two of those were Solar Ha sessions with the 150mm PST and the rest either the FC-100 or FS-128. That’s not bad going versus last year.

[mcrowle]

Not your typical January for me: 10 sessions (though some were of limited duration due to cloud).

[dweller25]

4 sessions for me in January, almost 5 but after a cloudless day the clouds rolled at Sunset ! and that seems to happen frequently !!

Edited February 5 by dweller25

[MonsterMagnet]

It's been awful in London, I think I've had perhaps 3 nights in Jan and looking at the forecast there doesn't look like any nights for the next few weeks.

MM

[bwj]

On 03/02/2024 at 07:04, Telescope40 said:

Hello all.  Thought it might be a bit of wheez and might help get this sometimes frustrating hobby of ours into perspective given the wonderful weather we have here in the British Isles.  Please note that overseas contributions are more than welcome and may add a different point of view / flavour but no gloating, please. 🤣 

We all have wonderful gear that sometimes gets underused and this can drive us all at times to a state of apathy.  The thread may turn into a bit of a monster so apologies to the  Mods / admin if a version 2 is needed by tomorrow. 🤣   Here we go as I am now keeping a log of time under clear skies  !!   

Days in the month -January - 31

Clear nights - 6 

Sessions - 4 

Might be just me but I'm thinking January 2024 went rather well in comparison to the whole of 2023.        John 

In my case, it's the people in UK that can gloat. I only had about 4 clear nights in January, which is unusual for us.  I was only able to get out once and had to stop after about 90 minutes because of dew and frost. I have a dew shield. but no heaters yet. At least one of the nights I didn't go out was because we had a week of -28F. And I'm a temperature wimp!

Clear Skies!

[Deadlake]

Zero sessions for me, the weather has been cloudy this January in the Surrey Hills.
 

I think maybe two clear nights, but I missed those for various reasons.

[jjohnson3803]

One session in January thanks to continual clouds / snow / rain / fog / subzero (F) windchills.  (Chicago, USA)

There've been a few clear nights in February so far, but I've been traveling so only one chance to observe so far.

 

[inFINNity Deck]

Compared to Autumn 2023 January 2024 was kind here in the Netherlands: 4 and a half clear nights, good for 47 hours of data (dates in the url are final processing dates, usually within a few days from start of capture):

https://www.dehilster.info/astronomy/deep-sky-objects/C25_240110.jpg
https://www.dehilster.info/astronomy/deep-sky-objects/M45_240111.jpg
https://www.dehilster.info/astronomy/deep-sky-objects/NGC5906_240127.jpg
https://www.dehilster.info/astronomy/deep-sky-objects/Sh2-261_240126.jpg

Between 14 September 2023 and 7 January 2024: 0 clear nights..., so almost four months without a cloudless night.

The forecast is rather poor:

Hopefully the week after we get 7 clear nights... 😉

Nicolàs

[LondonNeil]

I bought my first scope mid January and got 4, or was it 5, sessions in my first 2 weeks.   Where's the problem?   Then February started.....ooooooh.

[Paz]

Only 3 for me this January which is quite low. One solar session, one planetary, and one lunar. There have been a lot more opportunities than that but opportunities have to align with not having to other things.

2023 was 5

2022 was 11

2021 was 7

2020 was 8

2019 was 2

My notes go back to 2013 but I only have the above to refer to at the moment. 

My busiest months for observing are in the summer due to warm nights and having more time and energy to actually do some observing.

[Veloman]

Dec-0

Jan-5 , one of which was curtailed when the northern sky disappeared without trace!

[LondonNeil]

Blimey,  February isn't going well it's it! Not much to look forward to in the forecast either. 

Oh dear. 

[PeterStudz]

1 hour ago, LondonNeil said:

Blimey,  February isn't going well it's it! Not much to look forward to in the forecast either. 

Oh dear. 

Sunday night and especially Monday night look promising in the forecast for me in Southampton. Especially the early hours on Tuesday morning. Moon out of the way too. 
 

And looking promising/possible at the weekend for solar with a massive sunspot in view.

Edited February 9 by PeterStudz