Well there goes the season!

[SimmoW]

Lets hope theyre wrong...

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/la-nina-likely-to-develop-in-the-pacific-by-december-bureau-of-meteorology-says-20171121-gzpugq.html

[xelasnave]

Yes of course.
Its my fault buying a whole new set up (except a mount).
Alex

[RickS]

Summer isn't much good up here in QLD at the best of times. Maybe I'll get extra good weather at SRO :question:



If it starts raining frogs we know you got the mount too, Alex :lol:

[gary]

Hi Simon,

Read this article earlier today and read the story last week it cites as well.

When you have your astronomy hat on, you need to read it carefully :-





When you have your bushfire hat on, the news is not so good.

[xelasnave]

I am at Tabulam now.
Heaps of rain and cloud all day but the last 2 nights have been perfect making me regret leaving the gear in Sydney and not buying the eq5 and 80 mm before I came up...such a set up could be moved around...but should not complain been getting in some visual with small binnos.
But I had forgotten just how good a dark site is and it has taken away my enthusiasm to set up in Sydney.
Alex

[pmrid]

One of my favorite bush camps is near Tabulam, where the Plain Station Rd cross the Clarence. Alice's Crossing I think its called. Quiet, remote. No light pollution. Almost no traffic at night except for the occasional lost cow.

Hope you're enjoying it there.

Peter

[xelasnave]

I know it very well, it is only 12 klms from my other place up in the hills South West from there and much the same distance from this place. The road I am on here also leads right there...it is where we go for a swim and picnic.
I was told the next 5 klms down from "the alice" also known as Yates crossing is the best bass fishing on the East coast..the guy who told me belonged to a fishing club and also that they would put 1000 fingerlings in there each year..
You need to see it in flood...near gets to the top of the road on the West side.

Alex

[Camelopardalis]

Can’t get much worse, we’ve had cloud for weeks and weeks...

[The Mekon]

Seven days in a row now I have set up my scope in blue skies. As twilight starts, the clouds roll in. By full dark there is nothing to see but thick cloud. Lousy easterly winds. I hate them

[FI93]

Are you taking up solar viewing or daylight lunar viewing, it appears that that is the only alternative for a few weeks!!!

[SimmoW]

Thanks Gary. So now climate change is making things even weirder? Not good. But as you say,
Might lessen the impact for AP! Even better once the trees are burned down :shrug:

[glend]

It looked so promising last night, mostly sunny all day, but you could see the easterly wind pilling up cloud on the ranges to the west. Rolled back the roof at 1am on what seemed to be a perfect night, then came the ambush clouds, scurrying in from the sea, low over the lake. I was shooting Ha so i could try to wait for the gaps but it meant every sub had to be watched and histogram checked. I closed up and went back to bed.:shrug:

[ZeroID]

We've had a couple of good nights lately, first in ages !! Big stationary high over the Tasman. I've actually managed to grab about 3 hours of RGB to play with and a bit of Lum as well on the Helix. Hopefully might have something to show for it once I find some time to process it all.
But I have to sort out a RA tracking issue on the mount. It is oscillating fractionally E\W all the time and making eggy stars on long exposures.

Never ends does it ? Always something to be fixing or upgrading.

[gary]

Hi Simmon,

You are most welcome.

When I first saw the headline a week ago that a La Niña event was looking
probable, I had also initially assumed that it would mean more rain.

But I was surprised to read that it is unlikely to be true this time around.

There is an analogous sea-surface temperate phenomena to the Pacific
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ESNO) in the Indian Ocean called the
Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

Back in 2010-2012 we had a very strong La Niña. April 2010 to March
2012 was Australia's wettest two-year period on record. You will recollect
the severe flooding in parts of Qld, NSW & Vic in Jan 2012.

When the IOD is in-phase with the ESNO, we can get severe El Niño
and La Niña events.

Currently, however, the IOD remains neutral.

However, as the BOM reports, "to the south of the traditional Indian Ocean
Dipole regions, cooler than average sea surface temperatures in the eastern
Indian Ocean may be limiting the feed of moisture over Australia, and
opposing more typical La Niña influences".

The not so good news - the one you have when wearing your bushfire hat -
was illustrated in a graphic I saw on the weather report on ABC News 24 this
morning.

It showed increased bushfire risk for the southern half of Australia for this
season.

After an abnormally dry spring, it doesn't look as if this La Niña will be of
much help in bringing much needed rain.

Without much needed rain, come the next El Niño, circumstances might
become even more dangerous and more challenging.

As you mention, the effects of climate change and its trend of warming
the world's oceans is not going to play out well on the current trajectory.

[pjphilli]

Another dark moon period rolling by in Sydney with hardly any chances of imaging. Also a report in today's SMH regarding the ever increasing light pollution worldwide. Even on a clear night the visibility in my sky (in NW Sydney) is pretty poor with only very bright stars visible by eyeball. I remain amazed though at the ability of my QHY9 colour camera to get fairly decent images of even feint nebulosity. However, I have been progressively increasing my sub exposures over the years and now often aim at taking at least 9x15min subs to capture some of the feinter nebulosity.
I feel rather envious of you Alex for having a nice dark site at Tabulum!
Look forward to seeing some of your composites when you get your (astro) gear together.
Peter

[SimmoW]

What a well written explanation Gary! So other than being a hardware guru, youre obviously a cool weather geek!

Mist regions near us are still quite green. Which will be a worryfor next yr, plenty o fuel.

I like the look of your Argo Navis product. So you can pretty much use it on any mount to point a big as% scope accurately? Sounds neat, might be in touch one year....

Yes i too saw the report re. Brighter night skies. Guess that explains why we are escaping to Tamleugh, where there are more kangaroos than humans! The guy selling our place jokes that when you hear a car down our road, you KNOW you have visitors!

[xelasnave]

Hi Peter
Its great up here.
Years ago I managed a 1 hour 20 minute single exposure wide field which says something.
In Sydney I am only a couple of stations South of you...
Alex

[xelasnave]

http://s77.photobucket.com/user/xelasnave_photos/media/xelasnave.jpg.html

I thought they would have thrown it out by now...on a 300d cannon 6 meg so that dates it a little
Alex