Another grey day. Melbourne your killing me!

[toc]

Ive had my scope out once in the last two months I think. Melbourne weather I hate you.

[renormalised]

You need to come up my way for the winter. Last night was crystal clear, calm and cold. The sky, despite the light pollution, was like glass:):)

[DavidU]

My new telescope is fast becoming an unused vintage scope.
good 'ol Melbourne weather.

[Heath]

This is terrible here! And when we do get a small window of opportunity it's always been on a weekday.

Over it! :mad2:

[renormalised]

It's like I said, you need to move north in the winter:):)

[SMan]

I share your pain. A few nights ago in desperation I just sat there looking at Saturn through gaps between clouds. Now you see it, now you don't. :)

Cheers,
H

[erick]

Saturday night will be fine! Better be - I'm going out regardless!! :P

[leon]

Well not to upset you, but while we travel up the North West coast every day and night it is crystal clear, and i do mean every night, it is unreal the amount of clear skies out here, and to top it off the outback has no light pollution.

Leon

[Ric]

Careful Leon

You might end up with all the Melbourne members of IIS camped on your doorstep. :lol:

Instant star party. :D :astron: :party:

[pgc hunter]

I pass my days by drinking bottles of wine and cowering on the floor in a fetal position.

I'd say I HATE Melbourne's ROTTING weather, but that is being too nice.

Proof that this subarctic outpost is the WORST freaking climate in the entire nation (note the sunshine hours and cloud cover):
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW3050.latest.shtml oh yeah, it is drizzling as i type this, naturally.

[toc]

Drought come back, all is forgiven! (just kidding)

Oh well, perhaps I should think about growing a lawn this year? I had all but abandoned the idea a few years ago.

[Alchemy]

Another grey day..... It's been months and months, even summer was a virtual write off..... All astro purchases have been put on hold.

[DavidU]

I'm going to collimate my scopes again for about the 10th time in a month.:lol:

[pgc hunter]

What I'm surprised about is that the spiders haven't turned my scope into their own country yet...

maybe all the spiders are dead from the cold and lack of sun. I was gonna buy more astro stuff and upgrades for my scope, pretty much to keep myself sane, but bought a car instead, and we all know cars eat money faster than Melbourne Cloud eats a clear sky ;)

[Heath]

I did see a star last night!!!!:face:

[scagman]

The only stars I saw last night were on TV.:)

[Exfso]

Gotta tell you, it is no better in Adelaide!!

[marki]

Gee we have just suffered from a super long spell of not a cloud in sight (about 160 odd days I think:question:) but glad it's over now as it was really killing my back lugging gear out and setting up every night :P;):D. That said its very clear and cold tonight and will be for the weekend.

Mark

[DavidU]

Maybe the spiders died of boredom like the rest of us:D

[erick]

Come on folks - Saturday night - there will be enough clear periods. Have faith! :D

[toc]

I will give it a go - The only problem is that my backyard is a bit of a mud patch now. Might need to get get some gumboots :lol:

[pgc hunter]

blood pressure going north faster than Melbourne winter murders clear skies.....






Even small creatures get seasonal affective syndrome (SAD) like us unfortunate Melbourne-bound souls...that is how crappy our pov climate is :lol:

Everyone in Australia who doesn't live here ...... count yer damn blessings. Not even the worst wet season climate averages 2.7 hours per day sunshine in any month.


According to the BOM:

Saturday:
Cloudy. The chance of showers from the late morning until late afternoon. Light winds.

Sunday:
Partly cloudy. Fog early in the morning. Light winds.

------------

Thank Christ I planned ahead and STOCKED UP ON THE BOOOOZE :mad2:

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhCLOUDSRrrrrr rr
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaagggggggghhhhhhhhRAINBlllllllaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhhCLOUDS
Crrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppppppppppp RAIN!!!!!!
Ahem. 'Scuse me.

[pgc hunter]

Sometimes I wonder if the global alcoholic and junkie population are former Melbourne based astronomers :question:

[Spanrz]

LOL... I'm feeling the pain too... I think this cloud is my fault. I just bought a Canon Camera Lens and was going to try it out for the last week or so. Until this cloud. It has been relentless, I have seen pockets of blue sky, but that evaporates into grey cloud in no time.

Not even the moon was showing through. Hoping to get a crescent shot, but it's fading now :(

Very frustrating.



LOL!

[BlackWidow]

Hmmm not slot better here. Got new software and a new camera, with no chance of using any of it..... I just heard my telescpe yawn!



Mardy

[DavidU]

Guess what !.........it's cloudy & cold.

[pgc hunter]

It cleared up literally in a blink of an eye a couple of hours ago, but now it is yet again full Failbournecast so yer as predicted by me and the BOM it is a no go. Sirius was twinkling with all the colours of the rainbow anyway, continuing the record run of crappo seeing that has plagued this La Puncia year.

I remember a few days ago the forecast for today being "sunny", then gradually degrading throughout the week with each update, as per tossing usual.

Next Saturday has full blown "sunny" as per the BOM...give it 2-3 days and it'll read "cloudy with showers".

If we get ONE day without rain I don't know what would happen :rolleyes:


God willing one of these days I'll find myself in the Pilbara... hopefully before my mental sanity finally turns to curdled custard :rolleyes:

[erick]

Sadly, my faith was not realised. I suspect you all didn't listen to me so avoided the angst of being clouded out :D

After good sunny breaks all afternoon, I set up in overcast conditions at Snake Valley, which changed into misty rain for some time. Then had about an hour's observing in a few periods, in heavy mist, so the transparency has not been good. Annoying, since a dimmed Saturn was rock solid at 450x :sadeyes:

For the last few hours it has settled down to steady overcast conditions. Not looking promising for any more breaks in the cloud.

But, I saw more than I would have by staying home :thumbsup: And my visiting sister did get to see many of the favourites and was suitably impressed.

Waiting to see if there are any breaks before dawn - Jupiter would be nice.

[KenNo2658]

Sorry guys! Probably my fault! We put in a Solar Power system in November, then I bought a new Scope, and have spent lots of $$$ on eye pieces and other accessories in the last couple of weeks. So, of course, all we are getting here in the Valley is rain, cloud, dew, cloud and rain!

I was working up in Omeo for the last week so thought I'd be smart and take the old Nexstar 80. Omeo = -1,000% light pollution! Cold, clear nights! You Beauty!! So? Rain, cloud, drizzle, cloud! Even the trout weren't biting!!

Which of the Gods have I offended?!!

Ken

[ballaratdragons]

Ahhhh, Eric! I fell asleep :lol: Sorry.
When I left you and your sister up the back and came down to eat my tea I fell asleep immediately after.
I think my big day in Geelong knocked me around more than I thought :sadeyes:
I woke up about 2:30am and came in here.
I didn't realise you are still up the back. Big apology.

[erick]

No problem at all Ken. I woke up several times after 2am to have a look and it settled down to nice conditions - except for the moderate cloud cover. No Jupiter to be seen.

Still, my sister was very happy with what we did see.

[Spanrz]

I got out last night for about 30 minutes. I got to see a star! YAY!!!!!!!
But then the clouds rolled in again, well, they were always there, just a little more transparent than others.
I finally got to have a shot with the new Canon 70-20mm 2.8 II Lens.
A bit hard to nail it between the clouds, B&W worked better, reduced the street light glare....Bahhhh.. Happy I got 30 minutes though.
Feel like bedridden in a hospital... lol.

[Brian W]

Bah Humbug... move to the Philippines and never see the sky again. It is halfway through the year and I have only logged 38 new objects.... and most of those in about 3 weeks.
Brian

[ballaratdragons]

Looking good here in Western Victoria for Mon thru to Thurs nights

AND NO MOON! :cool: :party2: :clap:

[astro_nutt]

YAY!!...Looking good for Monday 30th...time to dust off the Dob!!

[DavidU]

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=76312

[pgc hunter]

Liking the look of Wednesday's forecast...my only usable night this week. Let's hope the obligatory pre-frontal high cloud doesn't stuff it up, but I'm willing to bet my very existance that it will :rolleyes:

Will it be a 6-pack and KFC, or a bag of galaxies????? Voting opens now...

[toc]

:cool: Its clear in Mill Park! The meade is out collecting dew as I speak :D

[erick]

I'm planning for Tuesday - but from home.

Will test out some video gear tonight - clear at the moment.

[DavidU]

I see these strange tiny points of light in tonight's sky !

[ballaratdragons]

I don't :sadeyes: I'm stuck inside!

The 1st clear night in ages and I am laid up with a pinched nerve after physio today :(
I can't even walk at the moment :help:

If it isn't rain, cloud or fog, it is physical ailments :sadeyes:

[pgc hunter]

and I have to wake up at 6am so it's bedtime for me :(

Crystal clear but transparency appears to be poor.

[DavidU]

My scope is rendered useless after an hour, dew +. I may as well have hosed it down.

[pgc hunter]

dew heaters ftw! I'd be dead without mine :D

[toc]

What a frustration - I have no dew control at the moment. :sadeyes:

Might as well have not bothered. :mad2: My scope is literally dripping. I was going to do the hair dryer trick, but the wifey wouldnt let me borrow hers :(

On the upside, I gave the CGEM a much better workout - works REALLY well this mount.

[Spanrz]

Ok, so who sold a bit of gear today or late last night? It seems to be somewhat of a starry night! Or did I just get punched up? LOL!

Took a few shots from the camera tonight, lots of moisture in the air. A lot of the shots came out glarey. 99% humidity @ 7.6c.

[Brian W]

And over here3 in the Philippines it also was a night of stars... at least for a couple of hours and I feel much better!
Brian

[ballaratdragons]

Tim, buy your own hairdryer.
I bought a 12 volt car one at Repco for $10 :thumbsup:

[Ric]

It was a lovely clear night up my way last night.

The only drawback was nonstop 20+ kph winds that put a damper on proceedings.

[blindman]

You do not know where are you living!
Just was in Melbourne over the weekend.......culture, shops, people you can communicate with...........
Sydney is little primitive village !
By he way when we were landing, I thought it's my last landing.....
Cheers Nev

[Manav]

Went to Melbourne on the weekend and when I came to Sydney it was no better and to make matters worse I picked up my QHY9 from Gama and now its wait.....wait.......wait.......TEC works!

Btw Brendan if you are reading this can you please send the MPCC adaptor! :p

[pgc hunter]

Well predictably, my prediction was right. Western horizon is now covered and it is very slow moving so will take a few hours to crawl through. Also alot of hazy matter lingering about in places, nooooot good galaxy hunting conditions..... thank god I got my good mate Dan Murphy to hook me up for the night.

[ballaratdragons]

Well, with a pinched nerve, I wasn't going to miss out on a clear night so last night I spent broadcasting online regardless of the pain.

After I did my tests on my new peltier cooling on my Samsung AstroVideo camera, the night started pretty good.
I was visiting the usual suspects (the good folk in the Nthn Hemisphere like to see them over and over), then as the night moved along I noticed I was struggling to pick up some nebulae properly. All the usual Nebs were a bit pale looking so I went outside and found thick fog! :eyepop:

The only thing I could see in the sky visually was a very dim Rigel Kentaurus!
Oh well, atleast I could still see everything with the camera so I just kept broadcasting :lol:

The fog eventually cleared about 2am and the sky was magnificent.
It gave me a really good chance to test the cooling properly.

But, not that I needed to cool the camera. The thermometer told me it was -6c ambient :eyepop:
and the scopes, mount, everything was covered in ice!!!

The Peltier on the camera was pumping out ice by the bucket loads :lol:
It was growing in ice crystal formations all around the Peltiers cold block!

But the best part was that I was able to pump the camera right up to Full Gain, Maximum exposure, every setting on Maximum, and there were no hot pixels and no noise :)

I did notice around 4am that the live image was looking a tad out of focus but I wasn't able to get it any better by electric focussing. I went out and checked only to find that 3/4 of the 6" lens was covered in ice :lol:
And that was with the heater strap running!
I've never had that before.

Anyway, I will be broadcasting again tonight, but I have put 2 heater straps on the scope just in case it drops to -6c again ;)

Isn't it nice to know that even on a totally fogged out night I can still do live video imaging. Ahhh, the wonders of modern AstroVideo cameras :thumbsup:

I packed it in at 5:30 this morning after a terrific full night of 'Live' broadcasting :)

[erick]

Had a great night last night, observing and videoing from the driveway until 2am.

Air was less moist than last Saturday night, or Monday night. Saturn holding up beautifully to 450x.

Good things come............................. eventually :D

[ballaratdragons]

Same here Eric. Last night was another fantastic night.

I broadcast until 3:30am (too tired to go longer) and had magnificent views all night.

Was good to see lots of IIS folk in there watching and chatting along with the USA viewers :thumbsup:
Thanks Carl, Davo, jj, JohnG, Bert, Bob, etc etc etc. Always good to have some Aussies in there with me to answer questions from the Nthn Hemisphere :)

[pgc hunter]

stuff me dead, tonight is looking to be potentially clear! Shame about the rocket-fuelled jetstream