Skippy sky update, no activity?

[bojan]

I noticed that Skippy sky did not update the Melbourne forecast for a week (last +6 hours data is from January 30th UT).

Anybody knows what is happening with this excellent website?

[mswhin63]

I just checked, I have the 4th Feb data on mine.

I just double check the overall Australia one is Feb 4 but the Perth one is 30 Jan - Concerning but I must admit I do not use as much as before. Maybe not receiving much revenue to constant update or maybe the update software interconnect is not working properly.

[bojan]

Hmm.. now seems to be OK...

The problem is, I found that forecast (for Melbourne) is accurate enough for 12~24 hours in advance, max.. anything more than that is just indication, the probability of accurate prediction worsens with every additional day. So, regular update is essential, otherwise the forecast is pretty much useless.

[mswhin63]

Hmm, maybe someone is watching the forum, Hmmmm

[bojan]

Maybe.. I should have complained earlier ;) (I only noticed now)

[deanm]

Yesterday (Sunday 3rd) I sent the following email to the address listed at SS before I came across this thread!

I'll post any reply....

Dean

*********************************** *********

Hi Andrew,

SkippySky is a Marvel!

I understand that SkippySky posts 3-hour interval predictions, derived from GFS info.

But how often are these updated: i.e. what is the time currency of SkippySky? (I have noted changes between AM and PM when I check, so it must be less than around 8 hours).

Cheers!

Dean

(also in Adelaide)

[Paul Haese]

Accurate in summer for SA but winter is another matter. Not Andrews fault due to lack of data collection points in SA.

[andrew_d_cool]

>Maybe not receiving much revenue to constant update

Oh, this is rich, if you'll excuse the pun. :rofl:

The PayPal donations button would have to be the most underused button on the SkippySky interface.

In over four years, I don't think I've received $200 in donations, which goes not very far towards paying for the Telstra Bigpond Elite cable plan necessary to download the GFS data 4x daily, and upload some 30,000 PNG files each day.

What does it actually cost me? To be honest ,I'm not too sure.

$100p.m for cable
Power for a PC running 24/7/365
Business class Website hosting
Domain name registration

Then they're are the intangible hours of my time maintaining, changing and modifying the site to cope with short term requests for special maps, e.g. for IOTA occultation expeditiions, Solar eclipses, star parties

But my time is my donation to the Community and Science.

It would be nice though to break even, cost-wise.

It would be nice to be able to retire my 4y.o. PC, running DDR2 800 memory with an original Q6600 CPU, and buy a current i7 model
that could crunch out those 30000 maps per day so much faster,
and let me contemplate expansion of SkippySky to take over the World:D

What can I say? If you're a frequent, regular user of SkippySky, it
would be nice to receive a contribution towards costs, maintenance and upgrade of the service. Would you miss $10?

Kind regards,

Andrew Cool
Adelaide
www.skippysky.com.au

[PeterM]

Ok Andrew I am in for $10, no make that $20 because I WANT to and I use the site everyday!

IIspacers lets get behind this valuable resource and help Andrew get that i7 or maybe just maybe, there is someone with one to donate?
So lets make this an IIS challenge, like the the Angry Anderson challenges from the 90s - "The Skippy Sky i7 Challenge" is on.

OK DUN done. Quick and easy using the donate button and my visa.

So how much do we need to get the i7?
Keep us informed Andrew and thanks for the great site.

Regards
Peter

[deanm]

And some $$ from me.

IIS-ers - if you've used SkippySky more than once, you surely find it useful, so give something back & help Andrew keep the site up & running!!

Dean

[Nikolas]

how about a link?

[pw]

From Andrew's sig

www.skippysky.com.au (http://www.skippysky.com.au/)

[deanm]

*********************************** **********

Interesting SkippySky info from Andrew:

*****************************
Hi Andrew,

SkippySky is a Marvel!

I understand that SkippySky posts 3-hour interval predictions, derived from GFS info.

But how often are these updated: i.e. what is the time currency of SkippySky? (I have noted changes between AM and PM when I check, so it must be less than around 8 hours).

Cheers!

Dean

*********************************** ***********

Hi Dean,

The GFS data is updated every 6 hours, and that's what I do with SkippySky too, notwithstanding any outages with my

Telstra Bigpond service, or outages with the American GFS servers. Or my aging PC that's been on 24/7/365 for 4 years.

It barely gets through uploading one set of maps when it's time to start downloading new data!


The GFS computer weather model takes a snapshot of all the latest Met readings from

around the globe every 6 hours, and "seeds" its model of the atmosphere with those readings as a start point.


So the rolling release of 3 hourly predictions every 6 hours means that the predictions are only just ahead of real, live data.


But as we all know, chaos can start to play havoc with any prediction the further out in time you go.


Much of the cost involved in running the site is "invisible" to the Missus, but funding a new, grunty modern PC

is a bit harder to hide in the noise.


Cheers,


Andrew

[multiweb]

Now the missus's gonna know. :doh:

[Steffen]

Hi Andrew,
big fan here too, but have you looked into VPS hosting for the site instead? For about $20 per month that takes care of bandwidth, power and hardware.

If I had to host anything other than a few static files (for which I can use Dropbox) I'd get a Linode virtual server for US$19.95.

Now, to find that Paypal button… ;)

Cheers
Steffen.

[whzzz28]

I must admit, i use the site a fair bit. Its generally accurate for Brisbane, although the past two weeks have been completely off.

Never the less - $50 heading your way Andrew!

[andrew_d_cool]

Hi All,

This is all a tad embarrassing, as I'm generally adverse to vigorously waving a donation tin under people's noses. But it is true that Skippy has been running on an original Q6600 quad core with DDR2 800 RAM
for over 4 years now. I've upgraded to solidstate drives for the OS drive and the data drive on which the maps are stored to try to get extra punch, but ultimately it's an old CPU and slow memory in a PC that any company would have pensioned off by now lest it fail due to old age.

I should also point out that the Bintel logo on the SkippySky website does not earn me income, but is quid pro quo for Bintel donating equipment to The Heights Observatory, where I mentor a group of High School students in Astronomy.

Neither is the iTelescope logo a commercial arrangement that puts $$$ in my pocket.

I'd be happy to put up a "Sponsor's" link to any nice Computer Store
that rode to the rescue with complete or partial sponsorship of a suitable PC. :)

Donations in the meantime are gratefully accepted!

Regards,

Andrew
www.skippysky.com.au

[deanm]

If any commercial organisation chooses to sponsor SkippySky, I for one will put my hand up to make my next applicable purchase (whatever that might be) from that company.

Dean

[ColHut]

Gosh, Blush. Just seen this thread after wondering about updates.

Great site. Even has Perth now. e-cheque in the ether.

regards

[Amaranthus]

Seems to have stopped updating again...

(Maybe the algorithm is taking a break in the 'sin bin' for forecasting a cloud-free night at Stockport Observatory for last night, only to have the clouds roll in and intermittently disturb proceedings before closing it out at 11pm :) )

[mark3d]

Hey Andrew, have you considered running the data crunching on a Virtual Private Server? $25 per month at Gandi, Amazon Web Services, or Azure, gets you at least a dedicated core and massive bandwidth which might be enough to take the load off your local PC and internet connection. (Of course, I suggest this in complete ignorance of the requirements to run the site... it might need more CPU cores or RAM, so the price might be higher.)

Either way, with worldwide usage and such an innovative site, if you can't cover your costs no one could fault you for considering a freemium model - the site coastalwatch.com.au provides surf predictions for a couple of days in advance for free, but people need to pay ($80 per year) to get the more long range forecasts.

[andrew_d_cool]

Hi Barry,

The good folks at NOAA in the USA, who supply the GFS model data that SKippySky uses, changed the name of their server by putting in an extra
".i." in the midle of the server name, which caused many headaches at in early May until I figured out what they'd done.

Updates for SkippySky depend on the NOAA servers running, on Telstra Bigpond running, on my own PC running, and lastly on my webhost's computers running OK. So there's a long chain where things can go wrong, and almost all of it is beyond my control.

Oh, I forgot to add, sometimes my teenagers chew up all our Internet quota, which throttles the download speed!!

Regards,

Andrew Cool
www.skippysky.com.au

[Amaranthus]

You do a great job Andrew. You need to worry when people stop complaining when it's not up ;)