ASSNE.ORG

Last night I had plans to go out and observe. Clear sky clock looked good and my scope was out cooling since afternoon. At about 9:00 I went out and the sky was clear but very murky, I couldn't see Saturn without using averted vision. I thought this was strange. Then I noticed that the whole sky had a hazy appearance to it and light was being reflected off of something up in the atmosphere. After packing it up and coming in looking at the weather it said it was clear. Then in the corner of my weather site it said wildfire smoke has reached the east coast. So I dug a bit deeper and this is what I found.

aerosols-suomi-0914 by kyphoron, on Flickr

According to the information on the map and the fire website this will continue to get worse over the course of the next two weeks and possibly longer if the jet stream continues is current trend. Looks like poor observing for the next few weeks at least.

Duh. I went out and looked and experienced the same reaction. However, unlike you, I failed to put two and two together, even after the constant reporting on the news.Thanks for the, uh, clarification.

Great map, too!

Tom

Thanks for the heads-up Paul. I too was stymied by last night's lack of transparency. Never considered the distant fires.

Putting tonight's observing plans on hold.

This is the way the world ends?

This really shows how much smoke is up there. This is a current satellite map of New England. No clouds over RI, but at zenith there is a hazy blue sky. No clouds or fog.
NEmap by kyphoron, on Flickr

This is a photo I took at the same time as the satellite image I posted. I can view the sun directly naked eye. Its filtered enough through the smoke to do so.
20200915_075436 by kyphoron, on Flickr