A cloudy week reading list

A cloudy week reading list

1 min read
Seven nights of cloud is a reasonable amount of time to fix something that is not the weather. Here is what to read instead of refreshing the forecast.

It has been overcast for six days and the forecast for the seventh is worse. Refreshing it does not help. Six days is, as it happens, about the right amount of time to fix something that is not the weather.

Three things worth doing indoors, none of which is "read more".

Reprocess one old set from scratch. Not your best one — a set you gave up on. You know more than you did when you first processed it, and the second attempt on a genuinely difficult set teaches you more than a first attempt on an easy one. Keep both versions. The comparison is the lesson.

Work out where your own sky actually sits. Most people have a vague sense that their sky is "bad" and no number for it. The number changes what targets are worth attempting and how long to expose for, and it takes ten minutes to establish. It is also the single most useful thing to know before buying anything at all.

Check one mechanical thing you have been assuming. Balance, cable routing, the tightness of a dovetail, backfocus spacing measured rather than remembered. Pick the one you have been assuming is fine for longest. In my experience it is the dovetail and in my experience it is not fine.

Bortle scale
The nine-point scale for night sky brightness. Read the class descriptions rather than looking at a map: the descriptions are observational and you can place yourself from your own balcony in about ten minutes.
You do not need a dark site
Why light pollution costs you integration time rather than the photograph, what a bright sky genuinely takes away, and the three things to do instead of driving.
A clouded-out week is also a reasonable time to read the first episode, which is free and is about the hour of a session that does not need a clear sky to practise.