EAS Newsletter for September 2021

Welcome to the September newsletter. I’d like to take this opportunity to those new members who have recently joined us. We all hope you will enjoy the Society.

As discussed last month, we are holding our meeting tomorrow (as I write this) in a hybrid manner – with a live audience in the museum and ‘Zoomed’ in members. We will see how this goes regarding future meetings. As we are having a live meeting, with David presenting space news and recent astronomical information, I decided partly due to time constraints just to focus this newsletter on “what’s in the sky” this month.

Now that the nights are drawing in, I hope you can get out and see the stars when Cumbrian weather permits. It’s always hit and miss. The forecasts aren’t always correct [do I hear a few titters?] but they do give a general idea. Clear Outside (https://clearoutside.com/forecast/54.34/-2.75?view=midday) often shows 100% cloud when in reality, it is just a thin high haze. Whilst that is not great for imaging or viewing faint galaxies, it hardly affects the brighter objects, double stars, the Moon or planets. So you have to look carefully at the details in these forecasts.

Don’t forget, contributions to the newsletter from any member are most welcome. They could be stories, historical snippets or photographs. Just get in contact with an email.

So, to conclude, enjoy the last of the summer and keep safe. Clear skies. Clear Skies.

Ian Bradley, on behalf of the EAS committee.

Astronomy weather forecast sites

They are customizable to your location – the links below are set to Kendal.

This satellite view I find quite useful as it shows the cloud cover for the previous 212 hours or so. This lets you have an idea as to what cloud is coming … switch to infra-red to view the clouds at night.

EAS Space News – David Glass

The images from David’s presentation at the September meeting are reproduced below

Plus an extra that time and broadband connection did not allow: