No Go for Wednesday, December 10th, 2025 and ALL the Reasons I came to that Conclusion and How I did it

 

Well, the Clouds won tonight as I looked at the following: Astrophereic, GOES Satillete, UDOT Camera and the National Weather Service Local Forecasts. I'm a little disppointed but tomorrow and Friday night will be incredible as High Pressure moves in from off the coast of California and dominates the weather here in  the Great Basin! This post and video over at EadsyAstronomy LINK walks you through how I use all these tools to make my decision on whether I go or not go. I am fortunate as all my sites are between 1 1/2 hours to a maximum of 2 hours away so quite doable.

Someone asked me IF I need to be a weather person to do the hobby. No, you don't but IF you can learn how to forecast your observing sites and predict accurately what is happening, then yes, it saves you time, heartache and frustration. You can ask my friend and observing companion Shane that I am really, really accurate on my weather predicting, about 98% accurate! So yes, in over 25 plus years of doing this, I have learned what tools to use and to become a weatherman so to speak! 

Please realize I am sharing this to try and help you to know how to make accurate predicitons in your are or if you are here in Utah, how I do it and then you can modify or add to it based on what works for you! The hope is to make this all that much more easier so that you can really enjoy this hobby;  thus EadsyAstronomy. 

To Go or Not to Go or When to Go and What I am observing for this next week

 

Over at Eadsy Astronomy LINK you can see how I am deciding whether to go observing tonight or not, or whether Thursday and Friday and then next week is the best. In late fall through winter, one must take what Mother Nature provides in terms of clear skies. I am focusing on Herschel 400, Abell Planetaries and Hickson Galaxy Clusters. I show how I use my spreadsheets and pick them so I can print them off. Next video I'll show the guides I use to get ready to observe these items. 

Using the UDOT camera it is currently not looking promising with the high cirrius out there. I share the forecast from Astropheric forecast National Weather forecast for Vernon Area Thursday Night over on EadsyAstronomy and they are looking FANTASTIC!

Update to AR 4294-4296; AR4298 and CME's Hitting the Earth

 

AR 4294-4296 as you can see in the image from SpaceWeather.com are rotating now to the limb of the Sun as they prepare to move to the back side of the Sun from our viewpoint. No Carrington event as I noted in my posts, but it is still an extremely large Sunspot area and it's been great to observe it when the weather permitted. 

Also, the CME from the class M8.1 from 4299 and the X1.1 from 4298 reached the Earth's astmosphere on 12/9/25 but did not cause the geomagnetic storm some hope for. They were weak by the time they got here after possibly hitting solar wind or other items that weakened them. More over at EadsyAstronomy at this LINK

The Supernova We didn't see: Cassiopeia A, It's history and observing it!

 In observing, many people think looking through a telescope will show this: 

In reality it looks like this:

I LOVE Supernova and their remnants! I like them so much I did an observing challenge for them and I will keep posting my observations of some of these. Cas A or Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a massive star greater than 8 solar masses that exploded roughly in 1680.  The visual light of the supernova was blocked by instellar gas and dust from earth. To learn more about Cas A and it's history and both how to observe it and my observations, including some from August of this year, head over to Eadsy Astronomy at this LINK! 

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