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Mark K
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 12/16/04
Posts: 860
Loc: Bury, Lancashire, UK
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Last year, I had many clear nights in April and May to help me identify over 120 galaxies in the ETX.
This year, I could have counted the number of clear April and early May nights on one hand. April 23 and May 1 were the only nights dark enough for galaxy viewing, and so far I'd managed to identify about 40 this year.
I'll have to wait another ten days for the Moon to get out of the way, but what really gets by gander up is the Met Office promising clear nights that never materialise.
Last evening was typical, with a fine sunset, but disturbing wisps of cirrus. The night itself started clear at 9.30 pm as the first stars appeared, but within half an hour, the sky was rapidly 'milking up' with infuriating high cloud.
I gave up hunting for galaxies and consoled myself with Solar System objects, but even they were bad in the seeing caused by the cloud.
Has anyone else been put out by false weather promises of late ?
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Mark K.
Meade ETX-125
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ForgottenMObject
Post Laureate
Reged: 09/11/04
Posts: 3585
Loc: Maryland, US
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Mostly, I've had great nights - when I've been out of town! Now that I am back, the clouds follow! Argh!
Sorry, Mark... it just seems to be one of those years.
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Matthew
IDA member
XT8i, 10x50 binoculars, lots of eyepieces
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JayKSC
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 01/01/05
Posts: 753
Loc: Florida
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Mark,
Florida may be the land of the sun according to our tourism boards, but believe me - our skies are just as capricious as yours! There are many bright, blue-sky afternoons that are supposed to be followed by "clear" or "party cloudy" skies at night. Many times, however, what happens is a marine cloud-deck rolls in leaving me socked under dense alto-cumulus.  This of course doesn't count those many times with fog or unpredicted thick cirrcus streamers.
All said, Florida is a great place to observe between about October and April. Starting in May, night skies become less likely to be clear; those that are clear are mosquito-infested! Usually I just don't observe during the summer... but I hope that changes this year.
Wishing you clear night skies!
 Jay
KSC FL
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Refractor manic. 
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thelittleman
Vendor (Peter's Actions)
Reged: 05/21/05
Posts: 4077
Loc: Hampshire, UK
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I could count the number of observing sessions I have had this year on 4 fingers I think. No luck, although it does look hopeful tonight (but I don't want to tempt fate  )
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Clear Skies,
Peter
Photoshop Tutorials and Actions! New actions now added
Preprocessing in Iris Tutorial
http://peter-morris.magix.net/
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Cygnus_x1
Sketcher Extraordinaire
Reged: 11/17/04
Posts: 2119
Loc: Isle of Wight, England
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Quote:
Last year, I had many clear nights in April and May to help me identify over 120 galaxies in the ETX.
This year, I could have counted the number of clear April and early May nights on one hand. April 23 and May 1 were the only nights dark enough for galaxy viewing, and so far I'd managed to identify about 40 this year.
I'll have to wait another ten days for the Moon to get out of the way, but what really gets by gander up is the Met Office promising clear nights that never materialise.
Last evening was typical, with a fine sunset, but disturbing wisps of cirrus. The night itself started clear at 9.30 pm as the first stars appeared, but within half an hour, the sky was rapidly 'milking up' with infuriating high cloud.
I gave up hunting for galaxies and consoled myself with Solar System objects, but even they were bad in the seeing caused by the cloud.
Has anyone else been put out by false weather promises of late ?
That's one of the dubious 'joys' of living in our fair archipelago, the weather never seems to turn out as per predictions and often it's rubbish. This seems to me to be a cyclical thing, some years we have a lot of clear nights others not so many. Last year, the autumn for me was very good for observing, some previous autumns were hopeless.
Observationally, this spring has been a write off (apart from a visit to Texas I've done practically no observing this year so far) and although we're having a few clear nights now (two in a row this week!) the flippin' moon has been in the way and we're stuck with it for the next couple of weeks. 
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Visual Deep Sky Observing
Visual Astronomy blog
Fotopic astronomy gallery My photos from astronomy events, etc
8x42 binoculars 'light thimble'
4" refractor and 4" Meade SCT 'light cups'
12" Dobsonian 'light bucket'
Various TeleVue eyepieces
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Alvin Huey
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 10/18/05
Posts: 1533
Loc: NorCal
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Quote:
the flippin' moon has been in the way and we're stuck with it for the next couple of weeks.
Happens all the time for us. We get garbage during prime time weekends and beuatiful weather during first quarter and full moon...at least it seemed that way to me. Other times, we get beautiful weather during the week...then clouds decides to roll in on Saturday (my group's main observing night) and clear out on Sunday.  Arrgh!
...so I didn't observe since beginning of October 'till TSP. That is WAY too long.
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Clear Skies,
Alvin #26
22" f/4.1 reflector, Takahashi TOA-130S on AP1200GTO (just sold), 30" f/4.3 StarMaster and Antares 6" f/6.5 on Orion SVP
FaintFuzzies | TAC | TAC-Sac
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FirstSight
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 12/26/05
Posts: 2515
Loc: Raleigh, NC
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Quote:
(In merry old England) although we're having a few clear nights now (two in a row this week!) the flippin' moon has been in the way and we're stuck with it for the next couple of weeks.
This reminds me of one of the CLASSIC Bugs Bunny cartoons where he gets lost burrowing underground, happens to come up under a rocket launch pad ["I knew I shoulda made a left turn at Albequerque"], and accidentally gets trapped aboard a space-bound rocket ship bound for Mars, where the rocket crash-lands. On Mars, Bugs promptly runs into a legion-hatted alien who has a giant telescope and a huge space cannon-like device nearby that he's preparing to use. So Bugs asks the alien "eh...what's up doc", and the alien replies "I'm about to set off my space decombobulator to blow up the Earth. It's obstructing my view of Venus".
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SaberScorpX
Post Laureate
Reged: 01/12/05
Posts: 4121
Loc: illinois, usa
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Bugs and Marvin from 'Haredevil Hare' :
http://www.gargaro.com/webpages/general/marvin12.jpg
(Yup. Clouded-out here, too.)
Stephen Saber
PAC/Astronomical League
http://www.geocities.com/saberscorpx/home.html
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Cygnus_x1
Sketcher Extraordinaire
Reged: 11/17/04
Posts: 2119
Loc: Isle of Wight, England
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Quote:
Quote:
(In merry old England) although we're having a few clear nights now (two in a row this week!) the flippin' moon has been in the way and we're stuck with it for the next couple of weeks.
This reminds me of one of the CLASSIC Bugs Bunny cartoons where he gets lost burrowing underground, happens to come up under a rocket launch pad ["I knew I shoulda made a left turn at Albequerque"], and accidentally gets trapped aboard a space-bound rocket ship bound for Mars, where the rocket crash-lands. On Mars, Bugs promptly runs into a legion-hatted alien who has a giant telescope and a huge space cannon-like device nearby that he's preparing to use. So Bugs asks the alien "eh...what's up doc", and the alien replies "I'm about to set off my space decombobulator to blow up the Earth. It's obstructing my view of Venus".
Well a friend of mine here in England has got a t-shirt (I think he got it at TSP or WSP one year) and it says 'Stop light pollution, nuke the Moon'. I've looked for one myself but not found it - before any of the Lunies jump on me, it's meant as a joke, nothing more, honest
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Visual Deep Sky Observing
Visual Astronomy blog
Fotopic astronomy gallery My photos from astronomy events, etc
8x42 binoculars 'light thimble'
4" refractor and 4" Meade SCT 'light cups'
12" Dobsonian 'light bucket'
Various TeleVue eyepieces
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Mark K
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 12/16/04
Posts: 860
Loc: Bury, Lancashire, UK
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The curse of the high clouds affected my evening's viewing as well, so galaxies were out and I had to stick to the waxing Moon, planets and doubles. Jupiter was low and horrible in the eyepiece at 120x, but Saturn was a bit better and Luna herself was good, with the Ptolemaeus group in dark shadow.
I had to console myself with globulars after midnight as the sky remained stuck at 4.6 magnitude. M13 was the best of the bunch with a few score stars resolved, but M92, M3 and M5 also showed a few individual points of light around them. The last target of the night was the Ring Nebula, which was fairly clear despite the milkiness of the sky.
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Mark K.
Meade ETX-125
Edited by Mark K (05/08/06 06:08 AM)
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