Astrophotographers: Use ClearDarkSky.com for Planning Imaging Sessions

Hi All,

It has occurred to me that not all of you may be aware of the ClearDarkSky website for planning your astrophotgraphy sessions. It is basically an astronomy weather forecast tuned to a specific location in North America (Canada, USA and parts of Mexico). This tool (provided by Environment Canada and the Canadian Meteorological Center) gives in bar-graph form the expected sky conditions hour-by-hour for a chosen location. Its a bit hard to describe in words, but click on the following link for a better description than I can give.

http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/

That site says: "It shows at a glance when, in the next 48 hours, we might expect clear and dark skies for one specific observing site."

Clicking on any hour on the bar-graph brings up a satellite view of cloud cover, transparency or seeing for that time. Explore the website to see which locations are already in its location list. If none is near where you plan to observe, you can submit a request for your own location. I believe there are some 2,000 locations already available.

Check it out! It is an invaluable tool for astronomers and astrophotographers in planning your observing or imaging sessions.

Best Regards,
Russ