The effects of seeing...

[rjbokleman]

The skies cleared! Excitement sets in! You run your autofocus routine...and then start scratching your head. Why...is my CLS/Lum filter now nearly 200 steps different than it was back on 2/2/2017?

Time to pack it in...and wait for a better night.

[Pete]

The great blessing of the observatory. We all get clouded out after setup, but at least there's less time invested with a permanent setup.

Also, if you wait until the "perfect iron-clad forecast" you don't get out very often. Gotta risk it to do it.

Pete

[rjbokleman]

Pete,

That's why my setup is what I'd call "semi-permanent". I think it's a nice balance between having to make a larger investment that couldn't be justified given my Orange/Red Zone sky characteristics. Then, for extended imaging sessions at a dark site (RAC SSP, Stellafane, etc)...it can easily be moved and everything is the same/familiar.

Only takes me 10-15 minutes to setup and tear down since all I have to do is drop the scope in the saddle and hook up the Cat5e. So, the gripe wasn't about the setup/teardown, just the weather we've been having lately...

The real point of the post though was to share a nice visual comparison between two image frames taken on different nights under different conditions.

The lesson being, don't push a bad night just to gather data. I've tried the last 3 nights in a row. None of them good. Perhaps tonight will be better. Fingers crossed!