Spent 2 hours lining up a Milky Way shot and a cloud rolled in at the last second

Got up at 3am last Wednesday to drive out to a dark spot near Lake Almanor. Had my camera settings dialed in after 30 minutes of testing, tripod stable, focus perfect. Right when the core was about to clear the horizon, a thick cloud bank drifted over and killed the whole thing. I waited until 5am but it only got worse. Anyone else have their best planned astro shots ruined by weather that showed up out of nowhere?

2 comments

2 Comments

robinson.jake5d ago

Add the weather apps deleting themselves from your phone right at that moment, that's how it always goes. I had a night where I checked Clear Dark Sky, Windy, and three different radar sites all promising a 2% chance of clouds. Drove two hours to a spot near Mono Lake, set everything up, and within 20 minutes of the Milky Way starting to show, a fog bank rolled in from nowhere and didn't leave until sunrise. The apps still showed clear skies the whole time, like they were gaslighting me. Now I just assume the universe enjoys watching us suffer with our tripods.

oliver_fisher4d ago

Oh come on, you can't blame the apps for a fog bank rolling in. That's like blaming your GPS for a traffic jam you hit. Weather apps are pulling from the same satellite data and models that meteorologists use. If the atmosphere decides to throw a curveball ten minutes after you check your phone, that's not the app gaslighting you, that's just how weather works. Fog near Mono Lake in particular is basically a coin flip on any given summer night because of the temperature differential with the water. I've had nights where I looked at the radar, saw nothing, drove out, and got perfect shots. Then other nights the opposite happened. It's called variability. You can't expect a computer model to predict a microclimate change at ground level down to the minute. Maybe the real problem is trusting any forecast more than you trust your own eyes once you're on site.