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Maldonado

-34.898° S 54.950° W · 41 M

57 /100
PEAK

Worth setting up — 5 hours of workable sky from 22:00.

BEST WINDOW 22:00–03:00 · ASTRO DARK 20:00–06:00 · MOON 0%

Transparency

0.48

Seeing

0.52

Cloud

15%

Moon

Good tonight

Hour by hour, local to Maldonado. Colour encodes the score and nothing else; every other measurement is luminance.

Sky state

Lighter = daylight and twilight · unshaded = astronomical dark

Score

BEST WINDOW

Low cloud

15%

24%

20%

21%

20%

14%

15%

25%

22%

63%

56%

59%

34%

Mid cloud

13%

High cloud

92%

99%

98%

56%

23%

13%

33%

45%

89%

100%

Transparency

0.38

0.37

0.38

0.39

0.41

0.42

0.47

0.48

0.44

0.42

Seeing

0.36

0.37

0.31

0.32

0.47

0.52

0.51

0.52

0.41

0.46

0.44

0.37

Moon clear

down

Inspect

Cloud tracks show clear sky — a longer bar is better. The figure inside each track is the raw measurement.

Why this hour scored what it did

18 Clouded out · 0/100

Starting from

100

Cloud

−58

Transparency

−10

Seeing

−5

Moonlight

−0

Darkness

−26

Score

CLOUD 94% LOW 15% MID 1% HIGH 92% SUN 0.5° MOON 3.2° / 0% WIND 8 TEMP 9°

Excellent 75+ Good 55+ Fair 35+ Poor 15+ Not worth it Seeing is estimated from surface wind — see how we score.

Tonight's limiting factor

Why thin high cloud ruins long exposures

Cirrus you can barely see will halo your bright stars, lift your background and vary between frames. Visual observers shrug it off. Long exposures integrate it, so it accumulates.

What are you doing tonight?

The same forecast, weighted for the target. Planetary work barely cares about moonlight; long exposures die on high cloud a visual observer would never notice.

Deep-sky visualPlanetary & lunarWide-field imagingLong exposureMeteor watching

SET UP 20:30 · OBSERVE 21:00–03:00 · 6H · MEAN 49

Darkness and moonlight dominate. Faint fuzzies need a genuinely dark sky more than they need steady air.

18202200020406

HIGH CLOUD CLEARS 21:00CLOUD RETURNS 03:00

SET UP 21:30 · OBSERVE 22:00–03:00 · 5H · MEAN 49

Seeing is everything and moonlight is irrelevant. Bright targets punch through twilight, so darkness barely counts.

18202200020406

HIGH CLOUD CLEARS 22:00CLOUD RETURNS 03:00MOONLIGHT IGNORED FOR THIS TARGET

SET UP 21:30 · OBSERVE 22:00–03:00 · 5H · MEAN 49

Tolerates soft seeing, but high cloud wrecks a wide frame and moonlight raises the background everywhere.

18202200020406

HIGH CLOUD CLEARS 22:00CLOUD RETURNS 03:00

SET UP 22:30 · OBSERVE 23:00–02:00 · 3H · MEAN 43

Needs conditions to hold still for hours. Sustained transparency matters more than any single good hour.

18202200020406

CLOUD BREAKS 23:00CLOUD RETURNS 02:00

SET UP 20:30 · OBSERVE 21:00–03:00 · 6H · MEAN 51

Naked eye, whole sky. Total cloud and moonlight are the only things that count.

18202200020406

HIGH CLOUD CLEARS 21:00CLOUD RETURNS 03:00

The next week of nights

Tonight · 12 Aug

Good

MOON 0%
22:00–03:00

Tomorrow · 13 Aug

Fair

MOON 3%
01:00–02:00

Friday · 14 Aug

Good

MOON 7%
20:00–04:00

Saturday · 15 Aug

Clouded out

MOON 15%

Sunday · 16 Aug

Clouded out

MOON 23%

Monday · 17 Aug

Clouded out

MOON 32%

Tuesday · 18 Aug

Clouded out

MOON 42%

Nearby locations

About this forecast

Conditions for Maldonado, Uruguay are computed from the MET Norway forecast model for these exact coordinates, combined with sun and moon positions we calculate directly. The score weighs cloud cover by layer, atmospheric transparency, estimated seeing, moonlight and how dark the sky actually gets. Read the full method →