Your ideal location ?

[Mr Flibble]

I would go to the Alps,thus I could get up above a little bit of the murk and fog, I could enjoy my other hobbies of snowboarding in the winter and mountain biking in the summer and the clear crisp skies I between would be ideal for astro.

I could've typed that response word for word for myself!!

[Ptarmigan]

Thanks, lots of interesting ideas there.

I think Scotland is probably as cloudy as where I am now or even more so !

Bavaria, interesting idea but I don't think the winters would agree with me.

Infact anywhere in North Europe is probably out because of too much cloud.

SW France and S Spain look good and convenient travelling for visits back "home".

Portugal, hmmm, not sure, isn't it a bit exposed to the Atlantic ?

I like the idea of the deserts but travel (especially by helicopter! ) would soon evaporate my sovereign wealth fund !!

The light pollution maps will be a good aid to planning.

I have looked for maps of cloud cover incidence but not found anything yet.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Portugal is a stunning country with great people.

Portugal is my second home. My mother and i own/rent out an apartment slap bang near the harbour in Lisbon.

Love the country,people,culture and food.

The Algarve though is the place to go.................

[Ptarmigan]

Portugal is a stunning country with great people.

Yes I agree !

I have holidayed (in season!) there from time to time (Braganza, Oporto, Coimbra and Sintra)

but not stayed long enough to assess the long term (winter & summer) clarity of the atmosphere !

Also, a sort of advantage, I have spent some time living/working in Brazil so I used to have a basic(*) understanding of Portuguese a long time ago, so I expect I could pick it up again!

(*) Also great, lovely people, but an infuriating(-<joke) habit of wanting to talk English with me !!!! Very difficult to learn Brazilian/Portuguese when they wanted only to talk English, couldnt blame them, they had a tame Englishman to practice upon !

[LukeSkywatcher]

Yes I agree !

I have holidayed (in season!) there from time to time (Braganza, Oporto, Coimbra and Sintra)

but not stayed long enough to assess the long term (winter & summer) clarity of the atmosphere !

Also, a sort of advantage, I have spent some time living/working in Brazil so I used to have a basic(*) understanding of Portuguese a long time ago, so I expect I could pick it up again!

(*) Also great, lovely people, but an infuriating(-<joke) habit of wanting to talk English with me !!!! Very difficult to learn Brazilian/Portuguese when they wanted only to talk English, couldnt blame them, they had a tame Englishman to practice upon !

I agree. I do my best to speak Portuguese when in the country. Its a tricky language.........and my level of it is broken at best. When i am in Portugal..............English is a second language to eveyone unless you go out to the countryside.

[Ptarmigan]

Are we talking as they are now or in an ideal world? If ideal anywhere from Turkey to Iraq would be nice, plenty of places for dark skies and when not observing so much history to check out.

Deffo food for thought! As you say tricky situation now.

And in the long term best to avoid the Anatolian fault(s)

Hmmm thinks, best not to invest in property, better to rent ?? :-)

[Austin]

The middle of nevada right out of the way somewhere

[laser_jock99]

So for me, it's got to be Mid-Wales. I don't mind the rain as I live near the border and am used to the climate!

Rain? It's snowing up here today!

[The Sailor]

I don't think there is an ideal place without the loss of something or other that the modern man needs unless you want to be a hermit and living off the very basics. Clouds will always be there at some point but you can always get away from LP so with that in mind it would be the coast in an isolated site within travelling distance from home. On the coast you at least have half of the sky or more that has not got much LP unless someone on a ship is using a searchlight, I have fould a couple of isolated spots off the beaten track and have been ideal.

Regarding moving, well after spending a life of moving I have found that the grass is not always greener and at some point there will be hankering for a previous place. Regarding Cyprus in the OPs post, having spent a time there at different times of the year it has been no different to anywhere else, plenty of clouds at times.

Jim

[laser_jock99]

The middle of nevada right out of the way somewhere

How about Arizona Sky Village:

http://arizonaskyvillage.com/

A community of amateur astronomers!

[Zakalwe]

Mt Teide on Tenerife. 8000 ft up, clear stable air and no LP. One of the best places on earth for stargazing.

Mike

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

^^This^^

Though I'd like to live near the top of the treeline, preferably overlooking the Valle de la Orotava. The town of Orotava is one of the most beautiful towns in the island, IMHO.

Or, failing that at the other end of the island, somewhere on the TF-12 road. A nice night-time location and an amazing road for a supermoto. That would be heaven!

*sigh* need a lottery win!

[Alastair Rae]

I don't think there is an ideal place without the loss of something or other that the modern man needs unless you want to be a hermit and living off the very basics. Clouds will always be there at some point but you can always get away from LP so with that in mind it would be the coast in an isolated site within travelling distance from home. On the coast you at least have half of the sky or more that has not got much LP unless someone on a ship is using a searchlight, I have fould a couple of isolated spots off the beaten track and have been ideal.

Regarding moving, well after spending a life of moving I have found that the grass is not always greener and at some point there will be hankering for a previous place. Regarding Cyprus in the OPs post, having spent a time there at different times of the year it has been no different to anywhere else, plenty of clouds at times.

Jim

The grass may not be greener but as a Londoner, I'm looking forward to retiring somewhere a little darker. Not sure I could persuade the better half to go south of Dover though.

[Ludd]

I couldn't agree more about getting out of London. There can be very few places that are worse - maybe Manchester, on account of the rain? Ideally I'd head a long way south but I'd even settle for Norfolk, having had a week just outside Aylsham in 2011.

And to pick up a point from earlier, yes, the no-see-ums are the dreaded NZ sandflies that plagued Captain Cook and his crew as they navigated along the west coast of the South Island. My parents have just returned from there, reporting that the flies are still very active there. The only hazardous animals in NZ seem to be sea-lions and sea-leopards and the mythical giant eels of Lake Te Anau. Oh, and the motorists of course.

[nytecam]

Very close. My personal preference would be just a step away in the Northwest Highlands. Not going ot name the place 'cos you'll all want to go........................... :evil:

Oh - go on - please let us know so we can all join you ? I've a box of halogen lights I'd like to play with and drive the spooky darkness away :evil:

Joking aside - I've seen amateur home observatories in Spain and the Canaries - abandoned !! Wonder if the every-opportunity to observe without constraint is a turn-off. Perhaps we work best without perfection and need a challenge

[DaveS]

I'm seriously thinking about NZ. I've family in Hamilton and thinking, "if you're going south, why not go all the way?" Not too many people, the climate is ideal, and you get the galactic centre right over head. Lagoon, Tarantula, Trifid, and Carina nebulae, and I might not even *need* NB filters to cut through the LP.

Sure beats London

And as there's only me, why not?

[nightfisher]

Somewhere in Spain

Personally, I'd stay away from the North because they get a lot of cloud and away from a big cities and the Med 'cos they get a lot of LP but apart from that, the skies really ain't that bad here. Furthermore, Spain is a very dry and a very mountainous country, so in general the quality of air, and of the atmosphere should be better than the UK and it doesn't suffer from problems of dew.

I live in a city which is about 90/120 minutes drive from the mountain ski slopes in winter. In spring it's the same drive to the beautiful, crisp clear air of flowering hills and waterfall mountains. In the summer, it's a similar distance to the warm blue seas and golden sands of the Med and about 30 minutes away from pitch black deserts which geologists say are comparable to those of Afghanistan! So you get the best of all worlds.

It's winter here in the city and I'm enjoying clear blue, sun-shining days and temperatures of around 12º C to 20º C. The sun really does make a difference to one's own well-being; too many grey days and one almost feels depressed! If the forecast is correct, my 45 days of cloudless, clear evening-night skies will be broken on Saturday afternoon but should be back to business by Sunday. That really isn't a bad innings for just the last 6 weeks.

Another plus point if you have the cash is that the economic recession has hit Spain hard (over 25% unemployment and still climbing), so in consequence house prices have dropped an awful lot. Many are going for almost half-price, or at least a third off the original asking price of about four years ago, meaning that you could pick up quite a good bargain.

Qualia, stop it, you are making me want to sell my little hovel and move to your location, any work out there for a heavy goods driver?

[Ludd]

I'm seriously thinking about NZ. I've family in Hamilton and thinking, "if you're going south, why not go all the way?" Not too many people, the climate is ideal, and you get the galactic centre right over head. Lagoon, Tarantula, Trifid, and Carina nebulae, and I might not even *need* NB filters to cut through the LP.

Sure beats London

And as there's only me, why not?

Too right: I was down in the South Island in 2010 and saw very little light pollution. The Magellanic Clouds and 47 Tucanae were easy naked eye objects.

It's a combination of the need to hang on to my London salary, the need to spend that salary on supporting offspring for a few more years yet, and the wish to be around for my parents as they head into oldage that keeps me in the UK.

[Pig]

At home with my wife Should make up for the Saturn post from last week !!!!

[JB80]

I've started to wonder what Estonia would be like for astronomy, I'm not sure I would retire there but I think it would be a good environment for family life. The weather would almost certainly be better than Belgium.

Colder and more snow yes but that's still better.

Are there any Estonian astronomers here?

[laser_jock99]

I'm seriously thinking about NZ. I've family in Hamilton and thinking, "if you're going south, why not go all the way?" Not too many people, the climate is ideal, and you get the galactic centre right over head. Lagoon, Tarantula, Trifid, and Carina nebulae, and I might not even *need* NB filters to cut through the LP.

Lagoon & Triffid from my garden in Mid Wales, single 5 min sub no filters, no need to go to the oposite side of the globe!

Addmittedly I would struggle with Tarrantula and Carina Nebula from here!!

[DaveS]

Well the mortgage pays off in 3 yrs when I'm 60 (Tries not to think .... 60... urgh), I'm not married with kids, mum passed away a couple of months back so there's not a lot to hold me here and my cousin and her familly are in Hamilton, so...

With a bit of luck by sellng up and downsizing drasticaly I should be able to put enough into the pension to retire on, and maybe have enough left for "The 'scope to see me out".

A lot to think about.

[JamesF]

It's the persistently horrible weather that is getting to me, to be honest. I think I posted a while back that four of the ten wettest years since records began a century ago have occurred since 2000. That's seems excessively high to me. Unfortunately of course it's hard to be sure that anywhere else one might decide to go will remain better. At least, without going to places that might be deemed unacceptable for other reasons.

James

[DaveS]

Lagoon & Triffid from my garden in Mid Wales, single 5 min sub no filters, no need to go to the oposite side of the globe!

Addmittedly I would struggle with Tarrantula and Carina Nebula from here!!

That's pretty darn good!

I couldn't even *see* that far south even if the sky wasn't bright orange

[laser_jock99]

Well the mortgage pays off in 3 yrs when I'm 60 (Tries not to think .... 60... urgh), I'm not married with kids, mum passed away a couple of months back so there's not a lot to hold me here and my cousin and her familly are in Hamilton, so...

With a bit of luck by sellng up and downsizing drasticaly I should be able to put enough into the pension to retire on, and maybe have enough left for "The 'scope to see me out".

A lot to think about.

Good luck with your plan- no good growing old in this country the Government will try to take your savings/property off you one way or another........

[laser_jock99]

That's pretty darn good!

I couldn't even *see* that far south even if the sky wasn't bright orange

Just wish the climate was better- I can count the clear nights this winter on one hand.