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How bad is your observing site at home?


jonifive

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Not sure if this is in the correct place, so mods please move as necessary.

I as just wondering if anyone else had a lousy view from home when you are out observing.

Here are my shocking views, firstly NORTH..

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Polaris just peaks over the house if I stand in the garden in the wet, as opposed to on the deck which is dry!

WEST and SOUTH is not so bad, but.......

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The new people in the bungalow to the south have a great outside light that their "cats" apparently need at night!

My best view is SOUTH EASTERLY,........

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But this is marred by the light pollution at the local Technical College (about a mile away) who leave their ridiculous lighting on until midnight...every night.

So does anyone else have such a poor view from home, or am I a lonely martyr?

JV

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Given up on the "flat + communal garden" and non-comprehending neighbours. In process of moving to a small place with a garden. Now my relatives inform me that I'm moving to a "war zone" ("Seeing" seemed O.K though!) To emphasise their caring and support, they've now "stopped speaking" to me. :lol: Ah, the things we do for (astronomical) love, Eh? :wink:

BUT remaining OPTIMISTIC! :D

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Mines quite poor

can pretty much only see straight up,

trees block the north and west and

houses to the south and east,

also two schools with flood lights on

till gone 11 glowing in the distance,

need to find a dark quiet site

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My site isn't great but can you expect living in London :wink:

I have a fairly good view to the South, West and North.

Light pollution is a problem but it is not as bad as it could be as there is quite alot of Parkland near me.

Cheers

Ian

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Living in a small(ish) town I've got a fair bit of light pollution. Also at the end of a close so there's houses all around me in varying distances. I've got a North facing garden so my south view is blocked by my house. So all in all, not great but better than now't.

Tony..

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My darkest view is to the west as I live in west swindon but that is blocked by my house,actually I am surrounded by houses.

My best view is to the South East as the bulk of Swindon's LP is to the north East.

So I mainly image as high up as possible to the East west.

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My home site is just awful. Surrounded by 3 story tenements, with mature trees in the back green. I get a 60 degree FOV, mostly straight up. I live in the West End of Glasgow - magnitude 3 skies. I have to drive 30 miles + out of Glasgow to get to decent skies.

Tom

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North is a dead loss. House and tree in the way but fortunately Polaris is above roof line. East is open but there lies a major road with very tall sodium lighting so that's a bit of a washout. Views from Southeast through to West are best. Just a question of waiting for the 'stuff' up there to move round to that area in their own good time.

CW

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This seems to be a major problem in UK.

Overcrowded, clustered housing, too many towns emitting light pollution :wink:

I'm in a small village near Hemel hempstead.

My observing area in my back yard faces North.

North is blocked by 2 huge trees next door.

East and West not too bad, but only 15 degress north of horizons due to other houses. Glow from London 30 miles away reaches half way up to zenith. :D

South is completely obscured by our house.

Zenith gets the darkest,best shots by far!

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View to the East is non-existant below 60 degrees because of my house and the rest on the terrace. North is ok but another terrace is only a 100 yards away in that direction. South is blocked by a stupid decorative bush belonging to the next door neighbour - I can see either side and above it but I have to move the 'scope. The end house south has a very sensitive sensor on the 'security light' triggered by cats probably. The next door neighbour's 50,000 MW floodlight comes on (or seems to but not proven yet) if he sees me outside so I may have to sneak out after he's gone to bed or kill him ;) . The view from SW to NW is about the best but SW is the direction of the town centre. This direction has factory roofs obscuring the horizon but they not as high as the surrounding houses because they built on lower ground.

To cap it all there's a telegraph pole outside my back yard gate with telephone wires fanning out to each and every house on the block so the view above leaves a lot to be desired.

All in all it's pretty bad but when the lights are off it's actually fairly dark for an urban site as the street lighting is on the other side of the terrace.

I'm temporarily in Vancouver at the moment (back in the UK in less than 2 weeks) and the neighbourhood housing in general is much more spread out than the UK with nice big gardens at the back. Sure there are trees and local light pollution to contend with but the views in each direction are generally less obstructed. The weather over here is more predicatable than the UK and the forecasts are pretty reliable.

Inland away from the city in places like Maple Ridge there are some very nice suburban sites and quick and easy access to some very dark skies. I've been told the local astro society based in Vancouver use a dark sky site on Rolley Lake about a half hour drive inland from Maple Ridge and an hour's drive from Vancouver.

My scope's at home though :wink:

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My views are pretty much the same as yours JV. In fact my clearest view is the Zenith. Once I get my imaging career off the ground, I must have a kind word with most of the people who are afraid of the dark living around me. They have more security lights than Alcatraz ever had.

Ron. ;)

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Fairly good views all around, East is restricted by the my house, South is not too bad, East and North fairly clear, spoilt by a few trees.

Biggest bugbear are the two street lights at either end of the garden, one the west, ad the other in the east, can shield this one with the chimney stack on the house, even managed pretty fair views of M31 when it was within 5 degrees of this light. There are another 6 lights in the west, the good news is that the two by the house go of at midnight, and the rest at 1 am. They come on at 6 am again. So compared to most of you, all in all pretty good. ;)

Unfortunately during the football season, Friday evenings are out due to flood lighting from the local pitch. :x

Naz

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Here's my situation:

North - not too bad, except for a nearby conifer & part of the LH neighbouring house. Polaris easily visible.

South - forget it. :( Enormous tree - I'll have to wait for Moon & planets to move to constellations such as Taurus/Gemini/Leo/Cancer which do clear the tree. There is a small area in the SE between other neighbouring house & tree, but I've never pointed the new scope there yet. To do any decent observing in this area, I'll have to travel somewhere else with the scope.

East - as South (my own house - one must live ;)). Small gap between my house & first-mentioned neighbour (to NE).

West - OK, houses are there but at least they're positioned so that the observable part of the sky is sufficiently above the horizon to yield less atmospheric distortion.

Zenith - fine. Fortunately, many of the best summer objects are around this area, as my few observation reports so far show. I've already ascertained that Pegasus/Andromeda areas will be fine for autumn.

Light pollution isn't too bad. Although living on the N edge of W Mids conurbation isn't ideal, the houses round my way tend to block out street lights (one kind person recently extended his house, this has had the effect of cutting out the view of the 1 light that DID previously shine into my garden. :wink: At least up the road, it becomes more rural, which helps.

Cheers,

A

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My home site is just awful. Surrounded by 3 story tenements, with mature trees in the back green. I get a 60 degree FOV, mostly straight up. I live in the West End of Glasgow - magnitude 3 skies. I have to drive 30 miles + out of Glasgow to get to decent skies.

Tom

Ditto!!!!

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My situation is not too bad, apart from being too close to Glasgow and the skyglow from there. East is pretty much out because of the house, South is fairly clear, although there is that sky glow and the terrain rises up gradually. West is good, with one tree being a minor problem and North is fine. I do have a neighbour who has an outside light on all night, but I can move to a position to avoid it, and there a couple of security lights that don't go off too often. The streetlights are mainly blocked by the house. I would estimate that I get mag 4, occasionally mag 5, skies.

Interesting to hear about everybody's situation.

Cheers, Martin

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Martin

Interesting to here thqat you can get down to Mag 5 occasionally.

On those rare clear, low humidity nights I have mamanged to see Mag 5.5 at zenith.

I make sure I treasure those nights, as they arrive about twice a year....

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I'm probably doing my back garden an injustice as I find estimating magnitude of skies difficult. There's the 'count the number of stars in the square of Pegasus' method, and I can occasionally see some (but only 2 or 3), but I find the magnitude estimate this gives doesn't seem right as I'll look at a constellation and can't see stars that I should be able to see - even allowing for differences in elevation and direction. Thus, my estimates are not very accurate. ;)

Cheers, Martin

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Reading Astronut's post reminded me (how could I have forgot!) that I'm also cursed with one of those telephone wire 'fans'. What makes it more annoying is that our home telephone is cable but I still have a telephone wire in the air above the backyard. Wonder if I can claim airspace rights and just cut it down!

CW

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North - House to the North (up to 30 deg blocked otherwise clear and dark)

East - Clearish but a bit of skyglow from neigbouring roundabout lights (Neighbouring house to the NE thin tall tree partially blocks SE)

South - Stone wall with short fence on top and bushes growing on top of it! ;) (blocks out up to 20 deg alt but also blocks street lights).

West - Clear and dark (a tree partially blocking SW neighbouring houses to the NW).

Overhead - Clear (obviously) and can be surprisingly dark on a good night. Have seen the milky way many times this summer.

My scope viewing area is quite dark during the summer as by pure co-incidence the bushes/trees are in just the right place to block out all street lights during summer/autumn when leaves are still on them (and there's quite a few street lights).

During the winter the street lights come in to play but on one positive note they are on the other side of the road to me. The roundabout street lights (these tower higher than normal lights) blot out any objects near the Eastern horizon.

My main complaint is the 20 deg blocking of the Southern horizon... has hindered my efforts at photographing the Sombero and viewing some of the countless DSO's hanging out in Sagittarius :x

Vega

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East is blocked up to 70-75 degrees by my town house, which actually does a good job of blocking the street light glow

South is pretty much clear... a house to the SW and another to the SE limit it to ~17degrees, but between that I can get way down in the murk

West has another house a bit closer, so the point of the roof is probably nearly 20 degrees.

North isnt too bad, down to about 10 dgrees or so.

Lets just say I can see N/S/W far down into the murk near the horizon. Mag 5 skies, sometimes 5.5-6, Milky Way clearely visible overhead right now (hell, on Friday night, I walked out of the fully lit kitchen onto the patio, looked up WITHOUT dark adapted eyes, and could still see it)

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