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Old 27-03-2022, 12:38 AM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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Freaking burnoffs!!!!

Perfect night for imaging tonight in Melbourne but again the department of fire and embers go and do their burnoffs that leave a high smoke deposit over Melbourne. Global warming be damned lets just burn all the bush and let the smoke settle over a major city.
Imaging ruined as guiding is all over the place
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Old 27-03-2022, 01:22 AM
glend (Glen)
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Just be thankful it's not raining.
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Old 27-03-2022, 03:54 AM
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First world problems. ;p
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Old 27-03-2022, 10:35 AM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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Issue is they burn off and it all falls over the city instead of waiting for conditions where the smoke blows away from the city, It creates all sorts of health problems this is hardly first world problems
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Old 27-03-2022, 10:47 AM
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Ryderscope (Rodney)
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With all due respect Nik, if we add your requirements to the growing list of things that need to be checked off before hazard reductions can occur, they will never be done. Then the RFS and National Parks get hounded and criticised for not doing enough hazard reduction and get blamed for all many of ills when bush fires run though the country. The window of opportunity to complete hazard reductions are limited enough as it is with the wind/humidity/temperature/environmental conditions and availability of resources being just a few.

Apologies for the rant but there is a bigger picture here that needs to be considered.
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Old 27-03-2022, 10:54 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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Yes it is frustrating but sometimes the RFS only get certain windows of opportunity to back burn in certain areas and conditions can change during the course of a day too
I suspect it’s our turn soon in and around Sydney once this ongoing inclement weather finally buggers off for good , everyone’s had enough, we’ve forgotten what a blue sky clear day and a clear night looks like !!!!
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Old 27-03-2022, 11:16 AM
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Ryderscope (Rodney)
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Yes it is frustrating but sometimes the RFS only get certain windows of opportunity to back burn in certain areas and conditions can change during the course of a day too
I suspect it’s our turn soon in and around Sydney once this ongoing inclement weather finally buggers off for good , everyone’s had enough, we’ve forgotten what a blue sky clear day and a clear night looks like !!!!
Ain't that the truth Martin. We are heading into another cloudy new moon period but I do hope that there will be a change as we move throughout the year. Luckily I have a couple of data sets that I managed to scrape in late last year and early this year that I am working on. Good thing about having one's own backyard observatory is the ability grab those few minutes of clear skies when available. I sincerely empathize with those that have to travel to dark skies to grab their data as it means that clear times are much more precious.
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Old 27-03-2022, 12:25 PM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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Originally Posted by Ryderscope View Post
With all due respect Nik, if we add your requirements to the growing list of things that need to be checked off before hazard reductions can occur, they will never be done. Then the RFS and National Parks get hounded and criticised for not doing enough hazard reduction and get blamed for all many of ills when bush fires run though the country. The window of opportunity to complete hazard reductions are limited enough as it is with the wind/humidity/temperature/environmental conditions and availability of resources being just a few.

Apologies for the rant but there is a bigger picture here that needs to be considered.
I'm talking about MELBOURNE shrouded in smoke
Our department have a bad habit of doing this and have been criticised soundly in the past for the same thing, the amount of people suffering Asthma and other respiratory distress because they can't look at a weather map make it harder, on top of that we still have a high number of covid cases exacerbated by the appalling amount of smoke
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Old 27-03-2022, 01:20 PM
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Ryderscope (Rodney)
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I'm talking about MELBOURNE shrouded in smoke
Yep, granted - I'm citing the NSW RFS as an example rather than the Victorian CFA. Admittedly I tend to cut a bit of slack for these organisations as I know how hard it is to get all of the ducks lined up to pull off a successful hazard reduction burn (I do have to declare that having been a NSW RFS volunteer for 26 years does tend to bias my position some ).

Please accept my rant in good faith Nik as it is an issue that I bump into often and I like to view and present both sides of the argument.
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Old 27-03-2022, 02:13 PM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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Originally Posted by Ryderscope View Post
Yep, granted - I'm citing the NSW RFS as an example rather than the Victorian CFA. Admittedly I tend to cut a bit of slack for these organisations as I know how hard it is to get all of the ducks lined up to pull off a successful hazard reduction burn (I do have to declare that having been a NSW RFS volunteer for 26 years does tend to bias my position some ).

Please accept my rant in good faith Nik as it is an issue that I bump into often and I like to view and present both sides of the argument.
All good mate

Down here it isnt the CFA that organises the burnoffs but the Department of fire and embers who deploy CFA volunteers
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Old 27-03-2022, 03:23 PM
drylander (Peter)
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But I guess that its ok to send smoke over the regional towns. they have similar problems but prefer not to have fierce bushfires.
The universe isn't going away anytime soon.
Pete
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Old 27-03-2022, 04:26 PM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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But I guess that its ok to send smoke over the regional towns. they have similar problems but prefer not to have fierce bushfires.
The universe isn't going away anytime soon.
Pete
Who said anything about regional towns? Prevailing conditions can blow it out to sea without it impacting on the whole area where the city (and towns) are situated.
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Old 27-03-2022, 04:57 PM
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I'd like to see some real data about how many people, if any, are killed as a result of smoke drifting into major cities. They'd be silent deaths, and wouldn't command media or public attention like deaths during bushfires.

It's fairly obvious that if you send a lot of smoke over a major (4m+) populate centre, by sheer weight of numbers, there's going to be some terrible outcomes for a small population, which on such high base numbers could be bigger than expected.
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Old 27-03-2022, 10:17 PM
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Just as an addendum - here in Mansfield I've been 'surrounded' by, at last count, seven large fuel reduction burns for the last four days. Four missed nights of using the scope due to smoke - but having seen the damage caused by bushfire I will not complain about it! The smoke has not helped my asthma either - but I've just reduced my moving around, used my ventolin as required and live in hope for some good viewing during the winter!
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Old 28-03-2022, 09:15 AM
Hoges (John)
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Not so much fuel reduction burns, but 100km to the west of Melbourne, the farmers do their stubble burns at this time of year which annoys the heck out of me. I just cannot see how all the smoke/carbon/particles etc etc can be doing our atmosphere any good at all. Surely there's a better way to keep paddocks in good nic without loading up the atmosphere with yet more stuff.
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Old 28-03-2022, 12:55 PM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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Well it's been headline news in Melbourne and the pollution is comparable to Mumbai and other places so the department of fire and embers and others who do burnoffs in the right/wrong conditions have some accountability
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Old 28-03-2022, 01:03 PM
Mickoid (Michael)
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For the astrophotographer this is annoying but that's all it is. There are bigger events at the moment to get upset about. I share your frustration Nik, for I too was looking forward to some great conditions on Saturday night. My subs all turned out with a brown cast due to the smoke. This is just something we have to contend with this time of the year. I understand why they need to burn, it's necessary to reduce the fuel and there are limited days when they can do it. My astro fun can wait for another night - it's not important and doesn't match up to something done to reduce the risk of future bush fires.
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Old 28-03-2022, 01:40 PM
Renato1 (Renato)
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It is annoying - I don't even bother getting binoculars out for a look with all that haze around.

But the purpose is to stop bigger blazes with even more fire pollution. I'm old enough to remember the Ash Wednesday fires of the early 80s, when we literally had ash coming down all over Melbourne. It would have been very messy cleaning that off lenses and mirrors.
Cheers,
Renato
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Old 03-04-2022, 07:24 PM
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OzEclipse (Joe Cali)
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Burnoff

Fires, can't live with em, can't live without em.
If the smoke is causing extinction, that's a perfect excuse to buy a bigger telescope.

Fortunately, out here most of the smoke from stubble burns is in the big cropping areas SE of here and with the predominant north westerlies, blows away from here and down towards Yass Canberra and where there are no telescopes or observatories. The mountains around Canberra also very kindly holds back a lot of coastal cloud keeping things clear out in the Central West.
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