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Hello from Hampshire!

RossWhiteford

By RossWhiteford
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RossWhiteford

RossWhiteford

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Hi all,

I've been interested in astronomy for a long time, and about six months ago I bought the Skywatcher 200p Dobsonian with Turn Left at Orion from FLO. It's a great scope in terms of ease of use, and giving good views of both planets and DSO's, especially once you get the collimation sorted. Unfortunately, where I'm living at the moment it is only possible to see the sky between south and west, and under some very heavy light pollution! I've not been able to get to a dark sky site yet (with or without scope) - how much difference does it make? Observing is amazing under all conditions of course, but I've always wondered. Perhaps someone knows of some sketches/images of the same object from different LP conditions?

I'm also hoping to get into astrophotography in the future - I've done some research and a lot of people suggest the Evostar 80ED and HEQ5/EQ6 combination, so when the funds allow! (Along with a copy of Every Photon Counts).

Clear skies to all,

Ross

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Stu

Stu

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Hi Ross. There is a sketching forum in the imaging section which you may find interesting.

Some objects handle light pollution better that others, it is a matter of their surface brightness really. Planets aren't really affected, in fact having some LP around can help you see colour I believe.. Globular clusters and brighter planetary nebulae are not too bad, galaxies and faint nebulae are washed out or invisible in LP skies.

The basic point is that outside lunar or planetary observing, everything else looks dramatically better under a dark sky! Well worth making the trip.

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Scorpius

Scorpius

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Greetings Ross and welcome to the forum! Can't say exactly how much LP affects our ability to see/photograph various types of celestial objects but would think (for the most part) results will always be better under dark skies than not - That is unless a little LP actually does increase the color visible in planets which I did not know until now...  :smiley:

I do know that narrowband imaging cancels out the effects of LP but I'm a long way from delving into that aspect of astrophotography...

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Demonperformer

Demonperformer

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Hi, Ross, and welcome from next-door Dorset.

How much difference does a dark-site make? A bit like how long is a piece of string. Depends on how bad your LP really is and how dark the site is.  But on the whole, yes, a lot.

This link: https://darkskydiary.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/naked-eye-limiting-magnitude-assessing-sky-brightness/ can help you with the first part. There was a site I used to go to in the New Forest (not sure which bit of Hampshire you are in?) that was really good - with a group called South Coast Astronomy Group  - they now seem to have disbanded, but I will try and track down where it was we went and let you know.

Found it (hope the links work)

Off the B3080 on the left hand side, before the Loft:
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9583155,-1.6987696,15z

The car park with three cars in this image:
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9583155,-1.6987696,232m/data=!3m1!1e3

On the green area on the other side of the carpark (over a VERY nasty ditch 'the ditch of death' when it is dark, so make sure you do have a torch!) was where we set up - great spot and the occasional traffic on B3080 was not a big problem.

HTH

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