Story of my life!

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Got to head out at about 12am to 100% clear sky. Decided to try to drift align my equatorial platform because the tracking speed is too fast and I wanted to recalibrate the compass because trying to include the 4.5°W offset looking at the tiny compass with small graduations is very hard.

Well needlesss to say clouds rolled in from nowhere and after giving up on the platform and deciding to get some observing in all the gaps in the cloud filed in too.

Litterally the only part of Ireland to have any cloud was once again, the Dublin, North Wicklow area. Packed up frustrated once again that I was muttering things like......You know what, **** it, I am sick to death of this, I'm selling the whole shagging lot of my gear. Whats the ******* point.

Honestly. I was absolutely livid!

Calmed down a bit today though and am not selling the gear just yet, but by golly is my patience being tested.

Thank god for that.

I got home from work at about 10.30 last night, saw that the stars were out and thought about setting the gear up. It had been a long day and there was an early start this morning and decided against it.
Then the inevitable guilt set in, here was a clear night and I wasn't taking advantage.

Your post has relieved that guilt Keith, because if I had set up and the clouds rolled in then there would have been a telescope sitting in the skip outside the back garden.

Sometimes life is good.:laugh:

Been there... done that... building the observatory!

Traipsing out to a dark site with a car load of kit is for the birds (and the hopeless optimism of youth!) Sticking your nose outside with a glass of wine in hand after a satisfying dinner for a spot of no-hassles observing with all your kit permenently mounted, aligned and humming quietly, waiting for your attention is the road to go down!

Phil.

LOL! looks like you got your chance to rub it back in, in my direction Paul after the SDAS Observing thread.:laugh: Also looks like all future SDAS Observing sessions will be taking place at Philips gaff. Can the missus keep us supplied with Tea and Scones Philip?

It just seems like if its not one thing its another. For instance last week I saw there were some decent patches of sky. Haha, I said to myself. I'm not going to be fooled by that. What I will do is set up the gear with the express purpose of diagnosing and attempting to fix some hardware niggles without any intension of Observing. That way I can feel I am not wasting good skies on hardware. Well got stuck into the hardware, the skies got better not worse but I pressed on with the hardware issues, except the one piece of software I was relying on for my full diagnosis after doing all the preliminary work decided to crap out. Spent a while trying to resolve that and then said to myself, screw it, I'll do soom observing in the improved skies......except it was then that the clouds closed back in.

So last night with everything working software wise and with the Sat images seeming to indicate a full nights clear sky, I figured I would definately be able to do both. Sort some hardware issues and observe. Well needless to say a tiny tongue of cloud over the Dublin/North Wicklow area put paid to that.

As for Observatory. While it would be great to have gear in situ and just roll off a roof, with my gear in a shed about 6 feet from the setup area, it genuinely only takes me about 15minutes max to set everything up, collimate and start observing. And yet it always seems to be that only 15 minutes is enough for the skies to cloud back up.

Gluttons for punishment is an understatement!