localish dark sky site

[faulksy]

a few weeks ago i was told by a member on here (skiorh) about a great place to go which is only 30 miles from my house, so last night i loaded my gear up and went for a drive, the location was in snowdonia and it was truly dark, as dark as i could not see my hands and accross the road from were i stopped there was a jcb which i could not see at all, the only down side was it was 100% cloudy but i still stayed for about an hour had a couple of brews and smokes as you do, you could see i small amount of light pollution to the north from liverpool but this was due to the clouds reflecting if it was clear you wouldnt notice.so i decided to head back home after driving for around 7 miles the skys clleared so i stopped and i could believe how good the sky was even though i had driven from were it was truly dark, the milky way was amazing never seen it like that, it looked like briight lights shinning through the trees but in fact it wasnt. stayed with my binos for the next hour or so trying to work out what was what due to the mass of stars and was greated with my first ever vue of a iridium flare never seen one before, well i think thats what it was, i could see what looked like a satalite then it grew in brightness and real out shone arcturus then dimmed to a satalite again quite freaky when you have never seen one before, and all this 45minuite drive away how good is that. i will definately be going back. watch this space. mike

[crashtestdummy]

The first time you go to a dark site is quite an eye opener especially picking out the constellations when theres 50 times more stars than you're used to.i find it hard to go to lighy polluted sites now ive been to a few dark sites

[faulksy]

i have been don to brecon twice now and wish i hadnt gone, only because from home the skys are rubbish, but some might think there good

[Mrlangston]

It really is amazing what a difference light pollution (or lack of it!) makes. I went to a friends wedding in rural Wiltshire at the weekend and could not believe the amount of stars up there. I felt completely lost and couldn't find a single constellation to act as a point of reference but it was an amazing sight. I'm sure I saw some nebulosity from the Milky Way so I think I will be travelling a bit further out from my garden in future and take my scope with me next time!

[ezekiel]

I've lived in Cornwall most of my life, only to live in Spain for a few months for work and a few years in Portsmouth, its very true what they say that you don't truly appriciate what you have until its gone, after the initial excitement of moving to a new city had passed I began to hate 'pompy', light polluted, concrete jungle...now I'm back in Cornwall, almost as far sountwest as you can get, I have a place just 5 mins away that will be ideal for my scope, I consider myself very lucky, it is a beautiful sight on a clear night down here....(now my scope is ordered I can't see clear skys happening much ^^)

[faulksy]

by the time full moon comes we will have clear skys

[crashtestdummy]

Its always clear when the moon is out

[starman1969]

Sounds like a great site. I've seen quite a few iridium flares by chance but the last one I saw was predicted by an app on my phone, iFlares. It was was bang on time and spectacularly bright at mag-8.

[bujin]

Where did you go, faulksy? Last weekend I went to Llyn Aled, up near Llyn Brenig on the Denbigh Moors at about 3am. Nice and dark out there, and peaceful with no humans for miles around! Unfortunately, it was mostly cloudy there too, but it did clear up enough to get a couple of pics. But by the time the sky cleared I only had about 10 minutes before the sky was becoming too bright to do anything with. I'll have to go earlier next time, although I was going for a specific purpose - to try to get a pic of the Milky Way in Saggitarius, and that didn't rise until about 3am.

Not sure I want to cart my scope all the way out there, but I may give it a go at some point.