Well, if I had been in any doubt each morning as I woke up, a quick look out the window would have been enough to confirm that I am indeed on holiday, and have been for nearly two weeks. This quick look would have shown me rain, cloud and wind in any combination you care to imagine.
I had hoped that this holiday, where I’ve been pretty much free to get out the ‘scope whenever anything worth seeing has presented itself, might go a little way to redeeming the atrocious year it’s been for observing and it’s been just the same as any other time I’ve had chance to do some observing.
There was just the one night, about a week ago, when there were enough breaks in the cloud to look for the Persiads and even so there was cloud up to about 25-30° above the horizon and more whipping across so in about half an hour I saw, maybe 12-15 meteors. Not much of a return from two weeks potential astronomy.
Holiday not over yet, maybe something will come along, though Metcheck suggests otherwise.
