21:28 – 23:24
I opened the dome at 8:30pm and then went off to do some more work. A few calls later and it was time to come back and see if I could grab comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE which had now moved further West and further in altitude over the past week, meaning it should be visible from the dome. Below is Arcturus as I performed a quick sync.
Below you can see Arcturus on The Sky X with the dome slit showing and the obstructions from the horizon also present.
Comet NEOWISE can be seen just above next doors tree.
A quick peek with the camera and I could just make out the comet.
Clearly more clouds rolled in which is typical
Looking at the cameras in the dome I could see the cloud bank of cloud (picture top right)
Fortunately the comet could be seen at the back of the cloud bank.
So I set about quickly taking some images before the comet disappeared behind the tree.
The other useful thing tonight was using the monitoring GingerGeek put together. Below are a selection of shots from the website.
The chart below shows the light cloud cover and the sky temperature is representative of the sky clarity and relates to cloud coverage too. The scale is inverted to -18℃ is a cloudless beautifully clear night sky, which tonight was not!
At least there was no rain 🙂
This image below shows the cloud bank just North West of Reading that was a problem.
This next chart is from the data produced by the AAG CloudWatcher weather station. Note the sky temperature is nowhere near the -18℃ to be clear.
And finally the all sky cam just as I packed up showing the clouds clearing
