When nights are cloudy, there are a few other astro related things I resort to:
- Study the star atlas & hone star-hopping skills
- Try to memorise the current planisphere "reading"
- Study cloud forecast maps e.g. SkippySky or GFS to make sure I don't miss any short breaks
- Plan the next observing session based on the above or their digital counterparts (hopefully the planisphere doesn't have to be turned too far ahead for that
)
- Solar observing - not surprisingly, the sun is the most forgiving object when visibility deteriorates, depending on which solar features or events you are observing (partial eclipse coming up next month!)
- Daytime observing in general (some planets especially Venus, some stars), weather permitting
- Catch up with my local astro club
- Process or re-visit any images I might have (I do mostly visual). Now is also a good time to enjoy any existing finished images - to me this is the only real reason for taking them in the first place.
- Read up on astro blogs
- Figure out how to solve that bloody dew problem, which will only get worse as Winter approaches
- Clean scope & eyepieces
- Get on the bike for a physical experience of space and time
All this may be obvious, but there IS still plenty of astro you can enjoy when the sky is obscured. Go on.
