My first time under proper dark skys!:)

[Madhatter]

Tonight was my first time under proper dark skys:D Id been watching sat24 all day checking where the clouds were heading and it looked borderline if it would be clear or not.

my friend came along, as we left bournemouth it was clouds outside my house "oh no this isnt looking great" i thought but the car was loaded so we gave it a try.

We headed out too stoney cross airbase in the new forest (excellent open skys and very dark) apon leaving bournemouth i saw a few stars so things were looking up-by the time we arrived i was amazed before i even gained my night vision, just a sea of stars!! with the milkyway very clear.

10 mins after setting up my eyes were much better dark addapted and the milkyway was even better! just simply stunning.

I set up the dob and tryed to look for M13- but i just couldent find it! i was disorientated by the sheer amount of stars..so i turned to find the double cluster-wow! that was amazing!! really bright clusters with hundreds of stars, then i found M81 and M82, much better than at home in my light poluted skys..and noticibly brighter and less fuzzy.

Then was time for some sweeping of the skys with the dob, not looking at any one target but just taking in the endless amounts of stars.

And finaly and much to my supprize one of my favs , was the ultimate wide-angle views with the naked eye-i really enjoyed that alot.

By this time the scope was getting covered in dew so we decided to call it a night, and as we was leaving the moon just broke the horizon and was the most strong orange coulor, very very nice indeed.

Finaly when we got home we took the scope out into the back garden and finished of by looking at jupiter and then finaly the moon.

All in all a brilliant nights observing, not often we can get out to dark skys when its acctualy clear so we took the chance and it payed off:)

Absolutly briliant!

Hope you guys also got some great obsering in, i think most of the country was clear so look forward to reading everyones reports:)

[tbird]

Great report, what a difference a dark site makes.

The Milky Way is a fantastic naked eye sight denied to so many by light pollution.

[brantuk]

Congrats madhatter - good report - and you caught some nice objects there