I've read a lot of posts where people mention their 'Dark Sky Site'. My garden is pretty good for a suburban location, but I'm hemmed in by trees, bushes and houses. Short of cutting a groove through the kitchen extension and house roof, I have to wait ages for Saturn to pop into view at the moment. So I thought I'd go and find my own Dark Sky Site.

I had some ideas and visited them during the day to get some orientation, find a flat, dry spot, safe parking and to make sure it wasn't some fly tipping hotspot.

Last night, I tried it out for the first time. I wanted to take some wide angle long exposure photos of the sky with my DSLR so I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to try out the practicalities of observing in a remote spot. This time, I didn't take the scope.

I walked away from the car in the pitch dark with only a small head torch to see me safely across a road, ditch, mud pool, another ditch, some water pools - none of these had been there when I did my daylight reconnaissance. Eventually I got far enough away from the road that the car lights wouldn't disturb me and I wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb. With everything set up, I started taking photos.

It felt weird. I'm used to walking in the dark (hiking off mountains after I've stayed a little too long) but this was different. Standing around, I became aware of every little sound. Distant sheep, owls, the sound of traffic crossing a cattle grid on a road I know to be at least a mile away. But what surprised me most of all was the amount of light pollution still visible.

From my spot, there were two major glows in the sky from built up areas I know to be several miles distant. There was a thin layer of high cloud that made viewing conditions poor but when I checked the photos later on the PC I was amazed at how much they'd picked up the street light glow.

I think my site would be ideal for observing with a narrow field of view, which would cut out most of the horizon glow. But my hopes of seeing objects near the horizon to the west have been scuppered. I'll have to try out alternative sites for photography.