Hi guys,
you might wonder as to why we basically had no observatory running in the last weeks. Regrettably the weather has been adverse in both of our locations, although the issues are different:
- In Namibia, we are confronted with the heaviest rainfalls of the last decades in January. Have a look at the statistics here: https://weather.namsearch.com/wdhrainsummary.php. Thus, we were unable to open the roofs. The rainy season usually lasts until march, with quite some stretches of good weather in between so observing should become possible nonetheless. The intensity and frequency of rain is way above average, but of cours eit is good for Namibia after several years of not enough rainfall.
- In Spain, the issue is freezing rain and snow ultimatively blocking the roof's mechanisms. We do know that our hosting provider (Astrocamp) was able to clear the access road to the observatory yesterday (12th january) and is now expected to get to the observatories and try to get rid of snow and ice on the roofs. This might take a while, as the temperatures are well below freezing.
Good news would be that the new telescope, which we expect to get on site during the next week, will be located in a dome which would be operative even with ice and snow. But well, it is not yet 😅
