Your opinion, do y'reckon it'll be clear tonight...

bermuda short observing. That's the kind of luck I've had lately

Thats ironic.
Whilst packing up tonight with numb hands and head
atop an exposed hill in Co. Limerick,
I got a flash back of a photograph i once saw of
Damien Peach sitting in his Bermudas in Bermuda
(by the pool) imaging away to his hearts content.

Enough of this Irish Denial!
Our weather is crap and we have to face facts.
No amount of Patio Heaters & 2 bit canopy's is gonna make this country a BBQ friendly nation.

Rain tonight I'm afraid, but you may get a few hours befors midnight..

Check the BBC one out, I use it all the time, it's very good...just press the forward button all the way out to 3 days. ( and nights)

www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ukweather/#no_url

Keith..

Nice site Keith.
I'll bookmark it.
Funny that with the rain.
I can feel it coming in the arm I broke a few years ago.
I wonder why that is...
Is it a pressure thing or what I wonder?

What's with all these messages about websites offering forecasts for tonight?

It's now 4 hours after dark in Kilkenny.
So far it has been cold as the proverbial and clear but getting a little hazy now.

OK, it's not a web forecast but it is real life, guaranteed 100% accurate and up to date.

Thanks for the update Keenan.
Those sites are critical for planning a nights observing.
Some do contradict but the best way I find to forecast the next few hours
is to use only satellite maps in UV, barometric charts and wind charts.
That way you can tell if a big chunk of 'non observing time' is headed your way and for how long.

Perfect example is today.
100% clear 360 deg. skies ALL day.
We go observing and ...oh-oh...
here come the clouds...
if it wasn't for the sites that give the real time data then we would be fubard.
At least we knew we had a window of a few hours before the blanket cloud
rolled in.

Like any hobby that is Dependant on the weather (I'm into surfing also and
I seem to spend way more time looking at weather charts and sites than actually surfing!)
you tend to get pretty adept with the weather prediction side of it.
There is a college in Cornwall that has surfing in their prospectus and almost half the course time is devoted to weather.
The course gives people a serious grounding in all aspects of meteorology.
And rightly so..the sport is immersed in it...
similar to Astronomy I guess.

Typically, I got out my PST today - and the Sun was as clear as water. I saw a couple of filaments and small prominences but nothing worth more than 30 minutes in a chill breeze...

Look at the bright side.

It could be worse.

Ireland is at the same latitude as Tierra Del Fuego and Donegal is about the same latitude as Cape Horn.

Be thankful for that warm cloudy Atlantic!

Peter.

Whilst I did get a couple shots of the Moon around 19:20hrs through some haze, my Canon batteries were dead within half an hour! :oops: Still, a remarkable Lunar Halo could be seen around 23:00hrs. The funny thing was, by then, I coudn't actually see stars because of the high altitude haze. Then it rained a little after 01:00hrs, despite having bright clouds illuminated by the Moon... :x I notice the temperature rise as well (as there was already plenty of frost on the ground etc by midnight).

Seanie.