Winter blahs...

I have not been out viewing with my telescope since last October.

I live in Wisconsin. I've got a permanent mount set up in my back yard, in the only place surrounding light does not kill my view. My neighborhood is in a horrendously, light polluted part of town.

This winter has really been terrible with the snow and bitter cold. Even tonight (March 21) it is supposed to be only 7 degrees with winds up to 20 miles per hour.

I don't go out when it is so cold out...it is just too uncomfortable to enjoy the views. At my old house, I had a nice blacktop driveway and could at least get out with either my Astroview 120 or my Meade 8" SCT for quick views when cold. My new place has an uneven snow filled, gravel driveway in front of an old, barely usable garage that is 50 feet away from the house. The permanent mount is great...but it's location is about 20 feet away from any place that is cleared of snow. I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of trudging through snowbanks with a 50 pound scope.

But this year has been a torment for me. No place to set up and too cold to bother with it. I've been reading alot...but I am anxious to get out with my scope(s) again.

Anyone else despise the cold winter so much that you basically wait out winter and don't get out much, if at all until spring?

I really need to move to a warmer climate!!!

Mark…

I kinda know how you feel. From Nov. 22 until Mar. 7 my scope was in hibernation. For me, though, it's usually not the cold (it rarely gets below about 28° here in Fresno), but the fog--we see a lot every winter. That, and my schedule didn't mesh very well with the few good days during that period.

I don't want to make you feel bad, but the past two weeks here have been unseasonably warm (high 80s instead of the normal high 60s) and the skies have been mostly clear. We were out with our club last night at Hensely Lake (30 miles north of Fresno at elev 600'). We had about 20 scopes. It was shirt-sleeve weather until about 10 p.m., and one guy was wearing shorts until about 2 a.m. Seeing was pretty good last night, but it was excellent last Saturday when I set up an impromptu star party. Last night was supposed to be a Messier Marathon, but only one guy was really working on it. Most of the rest of us were watching Jupiter's moons and Saturn and just having fun finally getting the observing season kicked off. The winter blues have passed here.

Fred