Despite Seattle being the cloudiest major city in the lower 48, there are a lot of brave astronomers who live here and still capture some great images (like the one above from Tom Gwilym, a member of the Eastside Astronomical Society).

But if you're ready to do some amateur observing, there is a rather unique weather chart that can help plan when to pull out the telescope.

Check out this link:

cleardarksky.com/c/Seattlekey.html

Which will get you a chart like this:



That will show you what kind of sky conditions are expected over the next two days. There is a key on that web site that will explain how to decode the colors.

Once you've found a clear day, here is one of my favorite links to find something to look at:

SkyView Cafe -- www.skyviewcafe.com

This is a Java based program that will give you a live star chart for anywhere in the world, or at any time in the past, present or future.

You can use their city database to try and find your location, or you can input your lat/long. If you want to use Seattle, which is likely close enough for any spot in Western Washington to at least find the star/planet you are looking for, that is 47'39" N,122'19" W.

I've got two resident astronomy experts in the hopper -- Leo Romo from the Tacoma Astronomical Society, and Tom Gwilym from  the Eastside Astronomical Society -- who are keeping me abreast of any big upcoming star-gazing events in the astronomy world, and I'll be sure to pass it along here.

In the meantime, happy star-gazing!