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Earliest time for observation (summer)

kaisersoze

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ronl

ronl

Posted
Posted

At 10pm Venus is on view low in West north west, then Saturn a little later

in the West, you need to be able to view 10 degrees from the horizon to see

Venus but she is very bright, well worth finding.

Clear Sky's

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kirkster501

kirkster501

Posted
Posted

Its tricky this time of year if you have to be up for work early. Its even harder for imaging; essentially forget it until gone 23:00. Shame since there are some lovely things to see. As Ronin says, August gets a little easier.

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jonathan

jonathan

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Posted

If you can, be up at about 1am for the darkest skies this time of year. Sometimes on a trip to the toilet at 2am I see a marvelous starry night outside, but it will start to get light from about 3.30am.

I haven't really bothered to get my scope out even when it's been clear, just tired after work and more inclined to get my solar scope out instead... if there were any interesting sun activity, that is. Doesn't seem to be much of an impressive maximum yet.

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Mark at Beaufort

Mark at Beaufort

Posted
Posted

I am situated at 52 degree North so astronomical twilight stopped on the 21st May and will return on the 24th July. In saying that I have nautical twilight throughout this same period so you can undertake some observing during this time at this latitude.

I start to observe planets - Saturn from 10.30/11pm. The sky is dark enough to view the brighter DSOs by midnight but you can see objects like the 'coathanger' before that time. According to the US Naval Observatory nautical twilight on the 11th July ends at 22.24 UT so 11.30/midnight seems about right.

By the way welcome to SGL and enjoy your summer observing by starting with Venus and Saturn and of course the crescent Moon tonight.

Mark

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acey

acey

Posted
Posted

Hi,

As you all know, during the summer, it gets dark really late...

I am about to do my first observations on my backyard... smiley.gif. What would be the earliest time to do this? 10PM?

Regards

K

Depends on:

Your latitude (i.e. how far the sun goes below your horizon)

What you want to see (stars? planets? DSOs?)

How well you want to see it.

Sun is furthest below horizon around 1am so the question is how much viewing time you can get either side of that. For DSOs you want the sun to be at least 13 degrees below horizon, preferably more like 15, ideally 18 or more (which is full darkness). That doesn't happen anywhere in UK at this time of year, but many parts get enough for minimal DSO viewing.

Here's a calculator to find how far the sun is below (or above) the horizon at a given time and location:

http://www.jgiesen.de/astro/astroJS/sunriseJS/

When the sun is 12 degrees below horizon it's defined as nautical twilight. You could aim to set up then and wait for the sky to darken a bit. Nautical twilight times for your location can be found here (select location):

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1364&month=7&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-13&day=1

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Tinker1947

Tinker1947

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Posted

I'm in N.W Norfolk, my garden is not overlooked by street light or other external lighting, this time of the year its 22:30 before i can see M13 but only as a grey round smudge to see the stars its getting towards midnight, then there is still a light glow from the North so depending on you location and equipment farther South the better, i remember when i used to haul a caravan to Yorkshire it got darker 1 hour later than it did when i lived in London.

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PorkyB

PorkyB

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In Birmingham last night I setup at 10:30, it's easier to do polar alignment when it's not completely dark, ready to start imaging at 11:30. Packed up at 3:30 when it started getting light.

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bish

bish

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Posted

The past few years I've done more observing during the summer months than winter - I like being able to observe in shorts and t-shirt! Generally I would start around 11:30 and go through until about 2am. You can still see a reasonable amount when conditions are good, especially when you are used to terrible light pollution anyway.

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James

James

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I'm in East Devon and I'm able to start imaging (Ha) around 11:30pm and finish around 2:30am at this time of the year. Visually though the darkest time of night is around 1am to 1.30am (would be around midnight but BST moves the darkest time by an hour). A couple of nights ago I was observing visually from about 10.30 (Saturn) but DSO's weren't up to much until around midnight.

My job is very flexible about coming in late if I've been up imaging/observing ;) but unfortunately my children don't show the same concern for their old man so staying up till 2am to get a couple of hours imaging data seems great up until I get woken up at 6am....

James

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

Posted
Posted

Right now from here in Dublin 11pm seems ok but midnight would be better. I really dont plan on any observing til mid august/early sept.

Some people say the summer months are great. Maybe they are but you have to wait til least midnight and you only get 3-4 hrs observing.

Not for me. I'm an autumn/winter/spring observer.

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