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To anyone living in a cloudy and rainy climate like western Europe, how do you do it? I live in the Netherlands. The clouds rolled in back in October and they haven't left since. There maybe have been 2 or 3 fully clear nights in a time span of more than a half year. Partially clear skies occur a bit more frequently, but that makes long exposure shots difficult. It also tends to rain often during these partially clouded nights. I started a M101 project that I hoped to get some good amount of time on this galaxy season (I'm aiming for at least 20 hours) but so far I've managed to scrape by only about 4 hours of good data. At this rate it'll take me years to finish. I'm at a loss and losing interest in this hobby fast. I picked this hobby up during the pandemic and have invested quite a bit since, but I'm on the verge of dumping my stuff on Marketplace and call it a day. How do you guys do it? People from UK, Netherlands, Belgium or other countries with cloudy and rainy climates? At this point I feel this hobby is only really worth if you live in a place like Arizona. Any tips would be welcome! |
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I have experienced astro-droughts like you describe in Indiana USA. This winter was terrible. It is worse than when I started 4 years ago. in 2020 I was shooting the sky 2 times a week. Lately, 2 times month, if I'm lucky. The northern wildfires made it even worse, adding haze to otherwise clear nights. Finally, beginning this early Spring, there were more breaks and I got out just enough to curb my disappointments. The lesson I learned is that rain and overcast weather fluctuates on a curve that is slow and tests our patience. I hope for you that it begins to clear more often and you get clear skies. |
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This has been a particularly bad winter in Scandinavia as well. I got next to none astro time. I think the issue is El Nino, where you get higher ocean surface temperature which lead to more humidity and more clouds/rain. And with global warming we will probably see even more of that. Sell your stuff and get a survival bunker instead 😬 |
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I'm in nearby Denmark, so I have roughly the same weather as you. This past winter has been the worst in my time as an amateur astronomer. The number of useful astrophotography nights can be counted on one hand and you'd even have a few fingers left. One advice I can give is to pick up alternative astronomy interests. I'm doing spectroscopy, which doesn't have quite the same strict requirements for fully clear nights. Slitless spectroscopy can be done with essentially the same equipment you already have plus a cheap grating in a filter cell. Photometry (visual or EA) is another fun option that also doesn't require huge investments and can be done with less than perfect skies. Just a suggestion. It might not be for you.  |
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Hello, I live in northern Germany and I feel the same way as you. But there will also be clear nights again. you have to be patient. As a consolation, I have booked a vacation on an astro farm in Namibia for the coming summer. Very expensive, But I'm still looking forward to it. |
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Thanks guys. I suspected we had a bad winter (locally) but I didn’t realize it was the same for everyone! The El Niño explanation seems plausible. Maybe it’s best to pursue other interests for a while and see how this summer develops. |
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| We go remote 😄 |
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It's crappy here in Southern Ontario, Canada too - an occasional burst of clear nights but not necessarily when convenient. And last season was eroded further by wildfire smoke. However, there is another way to consider things; many activities that people love to participate in require moderate to distant travel; - boating, skiing, hiking, camping, climbing, etc. We sometimes forget how lucky we are to be able to do this from our backyard, as infrequent as those times may be. If possible, traveling to a better site might ease some of the pain? Of course the ultimate is to set up a remote site, but costs are not favorable to all. I say stick with it and relish the good nights when they do come! |
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| As the others have said, it has been/is a pretty bad winter/spring in Western Europe. I mean, really pretty bad and I can go back for a quarter of century. I live "opposite" to you in the UK so I feel the effects of the North Sea pretty bad. If you want to endure in this hobby you must take a very, very long view and grab all the clear/partially clear windows of opportunity that the crappy weather gives you. Or sell off and be done with it. |
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Hi folks, same in the middle/ west of germany. I tried remote AF and even in Namibia the weather was not as good as expected.............. :-( CS :-) Frank |
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| This winter has been terrible in northeast USA. It's actually been really poor for a couple of years now with wildfire smoke in the mix. I've decided to stay in the hobby and send a telescope to new Mexico and do remote imaging. Otherwise, I was seriously questioning the investment intelligence! I hope to have this project done this summer. |
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I'm 58 year old. Been in the hobby since the 4th grade. Endure! CS I live under the Jet Stream... even clear nights the stars are terrible. |
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Thank you for this thread, I feel a lot better now, knowing I’m not alone with this…weather in southern Germany. I can’t even remember the last completely clear night. At the moment, 1-2 times per month the big clouds part a bit, but even then, the seeing is so horrible, imaging isn’t even worth the effort (5-6” in my latest attempt). And now it’s also snowing again… We’re in this together, and will make it through into a good summer. |
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It can be tough. Things like clouds, wildfires, and life circumstances get it the way. The way I look at it is that astrophotography is a special experience when it happens. It's like that great friend you see only few times a year. It certainly helps to have other hobbies to fill the time, and for me it's wildlife photography. With wildlife photography I still get to use a camera and keep my Photoshop skills sharp. It's certainly frustrating to partially complete projects. My advice for taking advantage of limited time is: Mono Color: get 20 mins on each color, and then do luminance for the rest of the time. Mono Narrowband: some targets are stronger in some signals than others. If you can, do some research and dedicate the appropriate amount of time for each signal dependent upon the target. OSC RGB/Narrowband: process what you have and enjoy it. |
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I'm with you, also based in The Netherlands, and same experience as everyone here when it comes to last winter. Things will turn around, I'm sure, and new clear nights will certainly present themselves again. Still, I have decided to move one rig to a remote observatory in Spain, and am very pleased to have done so. While skies are certainly not always clear there either, there is a healthy amount of clear nights to benefit from. It's not for free of course and I miss the 'tinkering' with the equipment a bit. But you get so much more value out of your investments that it's worth it. And there is enough 'tinkering' into setting up something remote/automated to last many years of imaging. Added bonus: at a lower latitude you can image in summer as well, with roughly 6h of darkness in the shortest nights. Compared to the 53°-ish latitude in NL, where in summer there is no astronomical darkness at all. |
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Something to consider. Recently I did a collaborative effort on a target. 1 percent of a 100 people vs 100 percent of 1 person might be the path... CS Tim |
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I'm based in the west of Ireland and have had the same weather as you. It has been just awful this winter. One of the things I did to maximise my imaging time was to build a semi-permanent pier so i can leave my kit out 24/7 under an appropriate cover. (An observatory would be better but was not appropriate for me just now. This means that I can have my kit up and imaging within 10 minutes of making the decision. That means that I'm willing to uitilise nights where the forecast may only be for a couple of hours clear. Before that I would be reluctant to lug everything out, set up and and tear down again in the morning unless it looked like a full night of clear sky. It was not worth the effort. My piers ( i have two now) have made a huge difference in how much imaging i can do and in my whole outlook on the hobby. |
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I had 2 fully clear nights in the 2023-2024 season (since august 2023), and 15 partials, so a total of 17 imaging nights. I am imaging from Finland, so it is cloudy almost all of the time and when its not we have bright summer nights. If you intend to keep doing this hobby, then i would say you absolutely must take all of those partial clear nights if the goal is to get a decent integration time, even if you only get a couple of hours. My most recent image (and the last image until summer ends) took a year to complete at 25 hours of integration. Last spring gave me 8h, this year gave 17. Getting comfortable with spending more than a year per target is a decent idea in my opinion... |
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| Hello from northern Germany and I too feel your pain. My equipment is also waiting and weeping in the corner. I feel like I’ve forgotten how to use it, but hope springs eternal. I recommend having some travel ready kit and then booking a vacation and getting in some dark sky time if you are able. Or, buy some time online and do some processing of images taken at other sites. It is all good for the soul during those tough months. Let’s hope spring and summer bring something better! Just be sure to update things, tinker, and be ready. The images you make will always be worth the wait. 😄 🔭 |
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Same, same - southern Germany. Very frustrating and I was looking at Remote as well. I had the possibility to go remote (shared), however, I am not there yet. I like to be in contact with my equipment and still like to be a bit hands-on. For me "making the effort" of setting up etc. is still part of the hobby. I am a bit worried losing the interest just sitting hundreds km away, operate remotely and getting (most likely much better) data by just pressing few bottoms. I see it as an inspiring challenge to get the images from the area/climate (limited imaging time, bad seeing etc.) I am living in. Most likely, I will not discover new DSOs or win a price with my images, but I still get the joy out of the hobby once the system is running and sending me the first pics through with the equipment I have. CS Rob |
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Living in south west of Germany. The weather has been catastrophic... I have been contemplating moving my gear to Spain, and use it remotely. A work college was recently in Spain, and on every photo there where no clouds to see... I have been reading about this, unsure how expensive it is. For me i had to lower my expectations how often I am able to image something, trying to be patient, doing something else in the mean time. But there are of course limits to my patience. |
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| I live in the suburban Midwest US. If it isn't cloudy skies, it is smoke from wildfires. You take what the skies give you. Back when I first started out, I was doing 2-3 hour images, which you typically can get enough of a window of opportunity to do. Anything meaningful (20 - 40 hours) can take months or even a season unless you are lucky. One image last year took three months (May-July); another could not be completed in three months (Jan-March) and had to be completed the next season (November). Having a semi permanent covered set up helps as others have stated, to take advantage of whatever opportunities you do get. Some of my friends have build observatories, but I am not convinced that is a good investment in a place with such lack of clear weather. The best solution is to go remote, but even that will require a time commitment to travel for upkeep. All of this has to be balanced with work and family commitments. This is a great hobby if you are well off, retired and healthy, or are one of the fortunate few to live in a place with abundant dark and clear skies; but if you have a family and are working, then you have to temper your expectations and find other pursuits to balance. One person I know actually chose their retirement home in a part of the country where they could get clear and dark skies - but such places usually come with other compromises, like lack of basic amenities that many of us take for granted. |
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I live in DK and have - as everyone else describes, had a horrible season in terms of clouds and bad weather. I have done more or less the same as @mackiedlm with a semi-permanent installation that allows for a much quicker "time to imaging" when opportunities show up. Having a more permanent setup has also allowed me to spend more time doing the finer adjustments to my rig as it can now be done over several sessions. Overall, I LOVE my new, more permanent setup, which has given me lots of joy - also when clouds are ruining the imaging sessions. |
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| I'm in the north west part of the UK which is the worst for imaging. As many have said go for a permanent setup. I roll back the shed and turn everything on and I'm go. Also take shorter runs on brighter objects, can give you a lot of satisfaction without producing the perfect image. I'd agree with @Johannes D. Clausen spectroscopy is great for short exposures, can do several objects in an hour, all in all don't give up! |
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I'm a noob but I'm also doing an m101 project, but I live not in western Europe but sunny England ;) I can pick up my rig in one hand and carry it indoors on the very, very rare occasions it rains ;) |
