The Saharan dust is affecting sky transparency; there’s a haze over everything. During the day, you may not see it unless you have a special vantagepoint like a high-rise office building or apartment, but lots of folks are experiencing flares of their asthma and itchy eyes. Alas.
For me, the major effect of all this dust is that it makes astrophotography all the more challenging – rather like adding locusts to a pandemic. Last night I captured additional frames of the Cats Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) and the Dumbbell Nebula (M27). Of the two, only the Dumbbell yielded a nice image from 18, 6-minute frames through the quad-band filter.
