My location in the Bavarian Forest is at an altitude of 900m/2900ft and very dark, but more on the wet side with typically just a few clear nights per month. Yet I have seen enough fantastic dark and dry nights to build a small observatory in 2020 and to enjoy a lot of beautiful observation sessions and create great deep-sky images.
Since about 2 years the number of usable nights has dropped drastically because of a high-altitude haze present almost every clear night. Typically bright stars have a massive blueish halo. During daylight the sky almost never is really blue. I am wondering where this change comes from.
One thing may be that due to the war in Ukraine a flight route from the near and far east to north-western Europe and parts of North America going through our area is a lot busier. This obviously leads to more condensation trails.
But what also - in my impression - has changed in the last two years is that the contrails much more often persist and spread out to create this layer of haze. I am wondering if this might be due to generally more humidity in the atmosphere (which in turn might be due to climate change).
As a scientist I am aware that there are a lot of "maybes" here and that one should not jump to conclusions to quickly.
But the effect (my observatory no longer usable) is very real and I would like to understand whats going on.
Has anyone made similar experiences at their site ?
Goetz
Since about 2 years the number of usable nights has dropped drastically because of a high-altitude haze present almost every clear night. Typically bright stars have a massive blueish halo. During daylight the sky almost never is really blue. I am wondering where this change comes from.
One thing may be that due to the war in Ukraine a flight route from the near and far east to north-western Europe and parts of North America going through our area is a lot busier. This obviously leads to more condensation trails.
But what also - in my impression - has changed in the last two years is that the contrails much more often persist and spread out to create this layer of haze. I am wondering if this might be due to generally more humidity in the atmosphere (which in turn might be due to climate change).
As a scientist I am aware that there are a lot of "maybes" here and that one should not jump to conclusions to quickly.
But the effect (my observatory no longer usable) is very real and I would like to understand whats going on.
Has anyone made similar experiences at their site ?
Goetz
