Smoky skies

[E23]

Has anyone tried to observe through the current Sydney smoke haze?
Two nights ago I could only see Sirius and the two bright Orion stars with the naked eye. Out of curiosity I tried to follow up a bright (16V) new asteroid candidate for the MPC with my C14. Normally I can reach about 20V but through the smoke the limiting magnitude was 15V with the same setup. A loss of about 5 magnitudes. The moon looked almost eclipsed.

Andras

[Wavytone]

Be prepared for this to continue the whole summer over Sydney.

Watching the fires at https://sentinel.ga.gov.au/#/ (try Katoomba and zoom out) it appears the fire fronts on the south and north are slowly burning their way north and south respectively through the Blue Mountains National Park, and will probably converge on the Great Western Highway.

In some respects its “the fire we had to have” after these areas being untouched in 60 years (last really big one was 1957 so the gumtrees are massive and thick, and ground fuel aplenty). Once these enter the Burragorang Valley, the canyons country and the Grose there is quite simply no chance of fighting these, the focus instead is property protection (ie towns along the highway and Mt Wilson). Without decent rain to extinguish the fires, this could drag on the whole summer.

The solution is to pack your gear and head west - at least to the upper mountains, or further. Webcams show there have been clear nights at Katoomba - Blackheath.

[Oddity]

Looking at the forecast, I'm wondering if this Thursday could be a rare possibility for observing in Sydney for the first time in a long time (and possibly the last time for a long time). Though there will be residual heat from earlier in the day, and moderate wind, if we're lucky and the forecast holds up then the wind looks to change to SSE which could knock some of the smoke and heat away, but still remain mostly clear of cloud.

Moonrise isn't until 1:30am so that's OK too.

I hold out a lot less hope for Saturday as if the forecast holds up the wind will be WSW blowing smoke straight in, followed by a rather thick and cloudy cool change.