A cloudless night

Hi all,

probably not the correct section in the forum to post to (please feel free to move it to the correct one)

i usually go out for a smoke every night after chilling watching tv etc, partially cloudy (quite common for England - crap weather and all) but tonight its a cloudless night, full moon beaming, stars showing, and what do i see ....... aboslutley nothing within the duration of me having a cigarette, not a single high altitude plane, flashing dot or whatever, when its partial cloudy i see about 5 - 10 dots moving all over the show doing their thing, but tonight being the 1st clear night in eons, there is no activity of anything.

So thats led me to believe something is up (no pun intended) why after every partial cloudy night i see all sorts of crap moving up there and when the 1st pure clear night comes around there is absolutley nothing happening.

i know its only a small duration of me staring upwards having a cig but every other time i see a lot, why tonight ?


just thought i would let you know


Cheers


Scaart

Well pretty cloudless here but plenty in the air - course it heps being close to Heathrow and there are allways plenty of choppers flitting in and out (mostly Air Ambulance and Police). Also get more than our fair share of military/private given the nearby location of RAF Northolt. So all in all its hardly been quiet over here tonight.

I live in manchester, but my main attention is up up there in the high altitude flying stuff, not a single one even on my second outing for a cig, maybe they cant be arsed flying over here tonight as there is nowt to see :-)

A moment of peace in an endlessly busy world.

It actually sounds nice.

it was actually quite surreal as the moon is full and beaming, giving a nice soft white light projecting over the housetop roofs, also there was no wind which when there it pushes the noise of the local motorway car sounds louder, it was actually quite a nice moment, maybe i should go out for another cig and absorb this unique event :-)

A little off topic, but i didnt want to start a new thread.

Did anyone happen to see the moon tonight?

Holy Jeeeees, its a bit large, isnt it??? And reddish????

Take a look!

Originally posted by emjoi
A moment of peace in an endlessly busy world.

It actually sounds nice.

Couldn't agree more, count your self lucky for being able to see the stars, the moon and the sky in peace without a man made monstrosity destroying your view. Now if only they stopped flying all together. Damn Wright Brothers. To think I live in Dayton Ohio, they would think me blasphemous.

reply to post by Scaart


I live underneath two international airports' approaches I tend to see planes flying over my house on a regular schedule so I will see a plane pass and 20-30 seconds later another following the exact same path.

When it is cloudy I see many more planes for two man reasons:

1. The planes fly lower to try and stay below the cloud layer.
2. The lights on the plane have something to light up.

What I mean by #2 is that the presence of clouds in the sky points to the presence of moisture in the air. You can not see a laser beam without the aide of smoke, dust, or fog. The same holds true for any light source. You can not see the light from an airplane unless you were either standing in front of the plane or the air itself was scattering the light. On a clear night, there would be almost no scattering of light.

I am no pilot (well I do fly a simulator every once in while) but I am pretty sure that during low visibility around airports the big planes are required to have their landing lights on. On a clear night they may only their nav. lights on.

Jon

I am out every night putting the animals to bed and if there is a patch of clear sky, I always look.

I have not see any evidence that the clearness of the sky changes the number of objects I see in the sky.

I live over the flight path of planes from Heathrow to the East coast of the US so get see, if the sky is clear, and before 10.30pm, I will see several planes.

On some evenings, usually later and the sky has to be very clear, I will see some thing that appears much higher that a plane. It travels in a line so I do not think it is a alien craft. Could I see satellite moving across the sky?

reply to post by Scaart


Yes, every night when I smoke I go outside. I use that time to do a little reflecting.. I will tell you if you live in a populated area with alot of lights you are not going to see much. The glare of most cities drown out any really breath taking veiws.
Now going out to the country side, or excluded beaches you can really see a clear veiw of all the stars.. The less light you have surrounding the area the better

Keep looking up man

What I see most is what looks like a moving star. not shooting star, but a steady moving star.

Originally posted by Voxel
reply to post by Scaart

 

I live underneath two international airports' approaches I tend to see planes flying over my house on a regular schedule so I will see a plane pass and 20-30 seconds later another following the exact same path.

When it is cloudy I see many more planes for two man reasons:

1. The planes fly lower to try and stay below the cloud layer.
2. The lights on the plane have something to light up.

What I mean by #2 is that the presence of clouds in the sky points to the presence of moisture in the air. You can not see a laser beam without the aide of smoke, dust, or fog. The same holds true for any light source. You can not see the light from an airplane unless you were either standing in front of the plane or the air itself was scattering the light. On a clear night, there would be almost no scattering of light.

I am no pilot (well I do fly a simulator every once in while) but I am pretty sure that during low visibility around airports the big planes are required to have their landing lights on. On a clear night they may only their nav. lights on.

Jon

Unless the aircraft are VFR theres no requirement for them to be 'below' cloud level. As you live near an international airport all traffic is likely to be IFR and therefore will not fly lower in cloudy conditions as the pilots will have their ATPL, CPL/IR.

Landing lights are always used for landing regardless of whether cloud is present or not.

Scaart,

What time was you outside? Sometimes in the evening the airspace can be pretty quiet here in the UK. Things normally become quieter after 11pm when Heathrow has practically finished for the day and most other airports have few aircraft scheduled overnight. It also depends on whether you live near any waypoints (VOR's, NDB's) or an airway.