[glend (Glen)]

Well it was not bad, not as bad as I expected. I stuck to eastern targets out over the ocean (M41, M42, Beta Mon, and a few others). The clear eastern targets exhibited usual star colour, I was expecting a bit of orange filter effect. Alnitak did display some haze effect. Seeing was ok to the east, the sky was not swimming around, very steady. I did not take a SQM reading as I could tell it was no where near the usual and the Moon was coming up.
So packing the gear up again. I might try again after we get past this rain event supposedly headed our way.
With the report I watched today on the NASA tracking of the bushfire smoke, which has now circled the world, forming a stratosphere ring, which is coming back over Australia; i might be waiting a lot longer.
And I do appreciate that local conditions have alot to do with what I saw, and many others will be substantially worse, or hopefully better. There is no consistency in the environment at the moment. As Wavy pointed out, just 100kms can give very different outcomes. I am hoping the worse is over for the areas North of Sydney, it seems like ages ago when the fires first took hold in northern NSW. But clearing skies is not necessarily a result.