Designed and developed by Dr. Hans Zarkov, formerly of NASA, the revolutionary Zarkov Cloud Gun punches a hole in cloud enabling astronomers to observe the heavens above.
Initially, Dr Zarkov’s fellow scientists rejected his proposal for a handheld Cloud Gun as irrational, but with the help of his colleagues, Alex Raymond and Ralph Berger, Dr Zarkov continued to refine and develop this remarkable device.
Inspired by the ‘fallstreak cloud’ phenomenon, where holes are formed in clouds when the water temperature is below freezing but has not frozen due to lack of ice nucleation particles. Dr Zarkov developed a device that fires nucleation particles into the cloud where they cause a portion of the water to freeze, which triggers a domino effect (the Von-Sydow process), causing water vapour around it also to freeze and then fall to earth. The result is a large circular hole in the cloud that lasts up to an hour or more before requiring another blast from the gun.
Average Rating (22 Reviews): | |
Possibly a little too effective. 21 October 2023 | Stian
This may, or may not, be extremely effective!
I couldn't say as I was somewhere else at the time.
Eg: Nowhere near, what may, or may not, have happened.
RECOMMENDED! It works -but be warned it is not effective on all types of clouds! 25 July 2023 | Mark
Love this product! It really works, but. . .needs improvement.
1. So right out of the box -and while testing a new OTA (of course there are clouds!) the cloud gun worked very well.
It zapped the high clouds and I could polar align and even swing over to resove Double Double and was very happy.
2. However, the next time I took it out -I had different clouds in the sky -not those high fluffy clouds, but the low, ragged and dark Marine Layer clouds that hit our coastal area in summer!
3. I noticed that the Cloud Gun did not work effectively on Marine Layer clouds!
-- One zap and it seems to work -but the marine layer comes back in almost immediately. .
4. Recommend you update the Cloud Gun with a setting that will compensate for the low-fast-dark and continuous Marine :Layer Clouds.
(maybe some kind of sticky-beam?)
5. Anyway it is worth the money -there are more clouds out there than just Marine Layer clouds
Mark
Excellent device with some reservations 07 July 2021 | Peter
This is a small price to pay for such a useful piece of kit when one considers the woeful lack of meteorological opportunites to enjoy practical astronomy here in the UK. Just be a little cautious of hovering Police helicopters when brandishing this in the dark. Your cries of "I'm just an astronomer" may not be sufficient to avert your impending demise. However, it comes highly recommended. "I would never go Cloudbusting without it" - Kate Bush.
01 November 2020 | Leslie
I does usually clear the the sky OK but unfortunatly it causes some types of cloud to descend to a thick dobsonian height scotch mist making dewing ten time worse. Therefor I'm giving it a low rating,you cant win.
04 July 2020 | Pritpal
Don't use it if you have a full bladder.
04 July 2019 | Johan
So living in sunny South Africa, I don't have much need of this most of the time. Except that clouds always appear when there is to be an eclipse, or an intense meteor shower etc. For that reason alone I ordered this. Waited 3 weeks (yay couriers!) and it arrived. Well packaged, but totally misaligned with no clear indication of that fact. I would use it ,and a spot would open in what I presume to be upwind. And then it would rain in my position 3 minutes later. FLO, please include CLEARER instructions! PS, if your tumble dryer stops working you can use this in a pinch: just stand about 20 steps back, aim and shoot. You will need extra batteries for use on laundry though.
30 August 2018 | Robert
I bought one of these cloud busters and found it to be so effective that I now only sleep during the day. This success made buy 5 more, so that when my Astro Group come round to star gaze in my back yard 6 of them can keep the sky totally cloud free all night long with just one quick change of batteries! FLO kindly gave me a 10% saving on all 6 guns - why buy elsewhere? Get one TODAY, for those sleepless, star-filled nights.
17 June 2018 | Michael
The instructions are of your usual gibberish fare, but from what I can work out this relies on using small particles to allow h2o molecules to attach to and thus create raindrops. All fun and games on my first night of use, but unfortunately my girlfriend's seven year old took it to school the following morning and promptly used it on his friends thus rapidly dehydrating said peers and his teachers. He has been sent home with a month long suspension, the gun confiscated and I'm back to where I started with clouds seemingly hovering over the end of my scope. Very effective but certainly not a child's toy. For this I can only give the gun three stars.
08 October 2017 | Derek
The problem with this bit of kit is that it is just too powerful. I used it over Cornwall for about a week on and off and after about 3 months, we had half a day of sunshine and clear blue skys! On a recent holiday to the Bishops Ring Nebula, I only had to use it once and quite a lot of sky was visible and I could look back and see the rings around Skegness quite clearly.
You will need the latest ZX 3.1 drivers and updated firmware to get the best results out of this model. A good hack is to bounce the beam off your eyeball at a tangent which will add 3 degrees dispersion rate.
Overall a good product and value for money but do shop around as there are cheaper models on sUnbay and Amoonzon.Com
24 July 2016 | Neil
I feel cheated by this device. Of course you zap a cloud and just as they say 'all the water nucleates and drops to earth leaving a hole in the cloud'. What they don't say is that all the water in the zapped cloud drops on your garden, Luckily I have a close fitting ed cap on my 15" Dob and was able to float around on thr OTA until the flood subsided, but it took me hours to bale out the observatory using a bahinov mask (another useless object, it leaks like a sieve).
So I missed a whole night's observing and they won't take it back because they say it did exactly what it's supposed to do.
Read all 22 customer reviews...