The perils of multi tasking

[Swoop1]

So, there I was, minding my own business, catching up on e mails via phone after a couple of hours setting up and capturing darks and lights and starting the data run on my chosen target.

 My Spider Sense told me that the laptop was about to go into sleep mode so I went to wake it up.

The last capture was on the screen and was pretty featureless. 
 

What’s up thinks I?

Only a sky full of clouds😠

10 minutes of inattention and my session is ruined.

To add insult to injury, 15 minutes after stripping down the rig and packing away, the sky was perfectly clear😫

Now got to work out what useable data I have.

[Vroobel]

I would suggest monitoring the clouds here:

https://www.sat24.com/en-gb/continent/eu

A wider context (Europe scale) allows predicting situations like yours.

 

[Budgie1]

A zoomable map with IR & visible satellite + radar, which I use on my website, is I'm Weather.

[Second Time Around]

Bookmarked.  Thanks.

[LongJohn54]

On the 22nd June I had, what was expected to be, a clear night.  Only a few hours of twilight but I was not going to let it go to waste.  PHD2 had been giving me grief by no longer recognising my guide cam and only connecting to the main camera instead then complaining that it's calibration was all wrong. 😵

It had been working for a while with ASI Camera (1)  as the main camera (Duo) and ASI Camera (2) as the guide camera (Mini) just as it says in ZWO's instructions.  Not any more. After a lot of faffing about it is now set as ZWO ASI Camera and the guide camera is selected seperately as shown below.

So, with that fixed I thought I'd calibrate PHD2 and get some test subs in.  Sixty 2 minute subs on NGC 6802 should do it. That small open cluster will be a good test object.  I left it all running nicely and went inside the house. Two hours later I'm back in the obsy and PHD2 is flashing red with a lost star warning.  Never mind, I've got 60 subs now.  Just get 30 flats and I'm done.

Next day I load the subs into PixInsight and run through Blink.  First sub = good, as is the second and third.  The forth is mostly clouded out and so is all the rest too. 3 out of 60! So much for that clear night.

Ah well, 3 subs = 6 minutes fully calibrated and stretched to death.  It's a start.

 

 

[wimvb]

On 28/06/2024 at 09:44, Swoop1 said:

To add insult to injury, 15 minutes after stripping down the rig and packing away, the sky was perfectly clear😫

This has happened to me on more than one occasion. My solution is to park the scope and wait. If it’s still cloudy after half an hour or so, I pack it in. But if it starts to clear, I resume my session. 

[bingevader]

My wife has always said that multitasking is a failure to prioritise.