NOT CLEAR SKIES!!! - Forums

Topic starter

7 days ago

Lately, Ive been inundated with "crappy" skies. We had a few good weeks with decent seeing, but lately it's been abysmal . First the high humidity midnight moisture, then there blazing heat (making it an hours long mandatory OTA cool down). Now it seems half the state is on fire, AGAIN! Just when I get my system and gear all dialed in I get this, Im very frustrated. Anyway, I guess Im simply sharing frustration over one of the things we have zero control over; the clarity of seeing and the sky. Check this out:

Tommi Liinalampi

6 days ago

I don’t think this will be much comfort, but I’ll say it anyway. Here in Finland, you can’t do any astrophotography at all between the beginning of May and the beginning of August, because the sun never goes more than 12 degrees below the horizon. In autumn and spring, there’s a two-month period when you get properly suitable nights for photographing only every third night. From November to January, the sky is often continuously overcast, and in February, when it clears up a bit, nighttime temperatures are nearly –20 °C. Greetings from Finland!

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Michele Rainville

6 days ago

Times they are a changing.

Lee Maust

New contributor

6 days ago

I can appreciate your frustration. I was spoiled when I was living in San Diego. Summer skies in the high desert mountains are usually cloud free every night. Now that I live in southern coastal South Carolina, I've been dealing with clouds, rain and thunderstorms every day for several weeks. Sooner or later the heavens will re-reveal themselves. Keep looking up and don't give up!

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Salvatore Iovene

Admin

IOTD Staff

Frequent contributor

6 days ago

Tommi Liinalampi · Aug 11, 2025 at 10:53 AM
I don’t think this will be much comfort, but I’ll say it anyway. Here in Finland, you can’t do any astrophotography at all between the beginning of May and the beginning of August, because the sun never goes more than 12 degrees below the horizon. In autumn and spring, there’s a two-month period when you get properly suitable nights for photographing only every third night. From November to January, the sky is often continuously overcast, and in February, when it clears up a bit, nighttime temperatures are nearly –20 °C. Greetings from Finland!

I can confirm this from having lived there many years. Finnish astrophotographers have it tough! Sisu my friend!

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Ashraf AbuSara

6 days ago · Edited: 6 days ago

Jeff Bennett:
Lately, Ive been inundated with "crappy" skies. We had a few good weeks with decent seeing, but lately it's been abysmal . First the high humidity midnight moisture, then there blazing heat (making it an hours long mandatory OTA cool down). Now it seems half the state is on fire, AGAIN! Just when I get my system and gear all dialed in I get this, Im very frustrated. Anyway, I guess Im simply sharing frustration over one of the things we have zero control over; the clarity of seeing and the sky. Check this out:

I sympathize with the smoke situation that's awful. But high humidity and blazing heat is normal every night here on coastal Texas

Tony Gondola

Frequent contributor

6 days ago

It’s been unusually cloudy here in Oklahoma this summer as well. It started off very wet with tons of rain and now it’s high humidity and persistent clouds. I’m hoping this will get better as we swing into fall.

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AstroRBA

6 days ago

Southern Ontario has also been mostly rubbish this summer, on top of an already brutal Bortle 8, we’ve either had streaky clouds, bad seeing or smoke, and of course the smoke always is at its worst during otherwise clear nights!

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Bill McLaughlin

6 days ago

Interestingly, I have a remote site just north (50-60 miles) of the fire and only last night did we not image because of smoke. Plus the seeing last week was quite spectacular, at times sub arcsec… But it is only 30 miles inland and not near any cities….

📷 Seeing.pngOTOH, at home in Central Oregon where summer always used to be clear 90% of the time, we have had night after night of clouds and over the past 10 years many more cloudy nights than we used to

ScottF

Frequent contributor

6 days ago

Southern Ontario has miserable weather at the best of times. Usually northish winds give clear skies, but the past couple of years it’s brought wildfire smoke. My area is notorious for rapidly changing weather due to the collision of southward and northward moving air masses. So the clear sky chart looks like a dream a couple days out, only to change the next day to clouds.

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SemiPro

IOTD Staff

6 days ago

I've posted something like this before, but yup:

I have not done a true astro image since May 2023. I can go remote, but I am not really interested in paying 200+ USD a month to be smoked out there too (not to mention other reasons). I guess there is always Spain? If I won the lottery I suppose Africa and/or Chile would work too.

Dominic Gareau

6 days ago

Southern Ontario has also been mostly rubbish this summer, on top of an already brutal Bortle 8, we’ve either had streaky clouds, bad seeing or smoke, and of course the smoke always is at its worst during otherwise clear nights!

I noticed that. When the skies are clear, the smoke is dense. Looking better for this week.

Jeff Bennett

Topic starter

6 days ago

YES, fingers crossed. I started a new session last night. Other than a 90%moon the seeing was better. I just got spoiled after a few months of awesome skies. You know how it goes, everything is dialed in and images are popping!

Dave Dev

New contributor

6 days ago

Time to sell your gear and get out of this hobby. The writing is on the wall. In 10 years there will be no demand for Astro gear, so get out while you can.

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Brian Diaz

6 days ago

Maybe it's some consolation, but if you look at South Florida, we might even have a possible hurricane approaching next week.

Brian

Oscar

6 days ago

Oh I didn't know there was smoke in my area; see the 2 islands to the left of the San Diego label? draw a line from between those islands into the mainland, and like 8-10 miles inland, I'm right there.

Truly a nightmare of a place for someone who wants to do astrophotography frequently.

As for clear skies, my last 3 here have been relatively clear, but coincidentally, I missed the sunset on all 3 nights, so I couldn't take my sky flats and so I couldn't image.

I think to survive here as an astrophotographer, you gotta have things as automated as possible, with the least amount of manual input, such as using roll-off roof sheds, NINA with flipping flat panels, etc…

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Kay Ogetay

6 days ago · Edited: 6 days ago

Here in UP Michigan, we are having so much trouble due to the smoke that astrophotography would be the least of my concerns. I'm not sure if we had a summer here. Didn't see a blue sky at all until recently for a few days. It was almost always smoky and rainy.

Plants didn't grow well, and some almost died in our garden. I compared my wildlife pictures from last year. I could see at least 2 weeks of growth delay just in July, it must be even more now.

Every time you smell a different kind of smoke. Sometimes it smells just like smoke. Sometimes it travels a lot in the upper atmosphere, gets UV exposure, and turns into different chemicals. Some days outside literally smelled like a lab.

As a scientist, I was always aware of climate change, but surely smelling formaldehyde in the air wasn't on my list…

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Arun H

Frequent contributor

6 days ago

This summer has been a complete bust here in the Midwest. Either smoke or clouds or both. We just had 10 inches of rain in a few hours leading to massive flooding and people’s basements flooded and belongings damaged. So I guess astrophotography takes a backseat compared to larger problems people are facing due to the the weather.