Is it going to be clear tonight?

[Glider]

Lately I've gone outside several times in one night, looked up at the clouds and gone back inside again miserable.

Then, got up for work next morning, sky clear as a bell, and read everyone elses reports about how clear it was after midnight.

Now I've found this, Met Office: Europe: Infrared satellite imagery

By playing the animation you can judge when if ever blobs of cloud are going to arrive and spoil things or how long it will take for them to move out of the way. It's in infrared so it works at night.

Works for me on several nights now.

[SteveL]

try sat24.com as well, their images are updated every 15 minutes

[Scott Tilley]

Last night illistrates this very well. Clear first off then clouded over so bought all kit in, then at midnight popped my head out the door and saw the cloud clearing to the east and the moon bright overhead. managed to get a couple of hours outside (2am!!) then cludy again.

Scott

[Glider]

Thursday night was a good example, cloudy till 20:00, started raining, which went on for an hour, but I surprised Mrs Glider by starting to get the scope over to the back door. Then at 22:00 as she retired to bed I went out till 4:00 and had a great nights imaging.

When Mrs Glider got home from work on Friday she didn't even realsie I hadn't been to bed, not sure if I should worry about that!!!

[brianb]

It's in infrared so it works at night.

Yeah, the only real issue is that low lying stratus cloud / fog banks which can ruin observation don't show up at all on IR sat images because of lack of temperature contrast, whilst very thin high cloud which is a nuisance but not necessarily terminal can look really solid in IR. As usual, you need experience to interpret the images.

[room16]

Well we've had clear days in the valleys of wales with plenty intermittent cloud/rain/snow/hailstones. As for night time its been a depressing affair. Not one decent clear spell, foggy as hell with low laying clouds and unfortunately, the little bits we have had haven't been enough to allow the scope to cool and get any decent time on it.

I've had me old finder scope out to have a nose, better than nothing lol, but still ... aint the same as the 10" dob