Hi,
I thank you and Attilla Danko for providing this service. I only have a small problem with it. It seems to be late. If local time ( It's now ~1900 hours Friday), the clock is still ending at 1700 Friday. As anyone can see, the usefulness of the clocks will depend on their being updated in a timely fashion, hopefully before observing hours arrive. Sorry to be grumpy about this.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: David Kingsley
To: sf-bay-tac@No-Spam
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 9:28 PM
Subject: [TAC] Cloud and transparency predictions for Bay Area sites
The Canadian Meteorological Center produces computer weather simulations every twelve hours that predict both cloud cover and transparency for the next 36 hours. Atilla Danko converts these into handy "Clear Sky Clocks" that predict hour by hour conditions for astronomical observing at particular locations. I emailed Attilla Danko with relevant coordinates for Fremont Peak, Dinosaur Point, Henry Coe State Park, and Montebello Open Space Preserve. He has generated links for all four sites on his Clear Sky Clocks page. To look up the prediction for any of our most commonly used south bay sites see:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/csk/
The Clear Sky Clocks looks like a very efficient format for predicting likely observing conditions at different locations. I know I often run satellite loops to try to predict movement of clouds over different regions when I am going to go observing. The Clear Sky Clocks show what would happen at a particular site based on predicted cloud movements. It will be interesting to see how accurate they turn out to be for some of our favorite locations.
To make the Sky Clocks themselves appear on another web page, Atilla sent some additional information below. It might be worth establishing a link to the clocks from TAC's web page.
David Kingsley
At 9:36 PM -0400 10/9/01, Attilla Danko wrote:
> Dinosaur Point 37o 03' 54'' N 121o 10' 13" W 648 ft
> Henry Coe State Park: 37o 11' 15''N 121o 33' 01" W 2600 ft
> Fremont Peak 36o 45' 32" N 121o 30' 14'' W 2800 ft
> Montebello 37o 19" 32" N 122o 10' 44" W 2284 ft
>
Hi David.
No problem. I am now generating clocks for all for sites. They
are listed on the homepage (http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/csk)
However, if you'd like the clock images to appear on a web page,
I suggest the html:
<a href=http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/Dino_CAkey.html>
<img src="http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/Dino_CAcsk.jpg"></a>
<a href=http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/Fremont_CAkey.html>
<img src="http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/Fremont_CAcsk.jpg"></a>
<a href=http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/HenryCoe_CAkey.html>
<img src="http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/HenryCoe_CAcsk.jpg"></a>
<a href=http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/Montebello_CAkey.html>
<img src="http://www3.sympatico.ca/attilla.danko/t/Montebello_CAcsk.jpg"></a>
If there are clubs which are the primary users of those sites, and have
web pages with notes about observing there (how to get there, who
to get permission from etc), fee free to email me the urls. I will link them
from the Clear Sky Clock home page.
Clear, or well forecast, skies.
-ad
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Oct 11 2001 - 19:18:16 MST
