If you had to choose which way to point your scope what would it be?

[dynamo hum]

i.e. mainly North, South, East or West?

The reason I ask is that I've been looking around my back garden for somewhere to semi-permanently mount my scope. I've found that the 'darkest' points are great for nothern viewing (taking into account trees that will sadly die suddenly and unexpectedly I suspect...). West is a bit too bright, and East and South are not too bad.

When you look at setting up a 'permanent' structure in this part of the globe (NW England) are there certain compass points of the sky that would be more rewarding than others over the course of a year compared to others?

[GazOC]

Theres only one answer...South.

Its the way to get the best views of the most the objects over the course of a year.

[iancandler]

Same with me.. mines set up facing south, hopefully in time another will be set up facing north or north east.

[CELESCOPE]

80% of mine is in the East, south east ,

Rog

[barkis]

If you are going to have your scope track objects via a RA motor drive, then the polar axis will have to point to the celestial pole.

That is a paramount condition supposing of course your mount is an equatorial one. I realize my answer probably does not reflect your question, but the siting of your scope mount will bear greatly on your future, if it includes imaging. Barring obstacles, you will still have access to the cardinal points.

Ron.

[Astroman]

South, because sooner or later, everything will pass over head. (As long as I can move in altitude, that is.)

At the U.S. Naval Observatory outside Flagstaff, Az, the 8" Astrometric Telescope faces south and is FIXED in azimuth. It has to wait for objects to pass over it to measure their positions. Over the years, there have been something like 5,000,000 such measurements of stars' locations to a precision of .01 arcseconds or better.

[Tim]

Quote : If you had to choose which way to point your scope what would it be?

Up.

Oh I see what you mean. I also have a problem with a neighbours 30ft Cupressus Lleylandii at NNW in my garden, but usually anything behind that would be in the murky atmosphere anyways.

Maybe a program like stellarium could help you make your mind up, if you could recreate your estimated positions, you might get an idea of your FOV.

Cheers

TJ

[beamish]

One know TJ, that's not such a bad idea, surely with "sticthing " and panoramas, why can't we take piccies of our environment and then overlay them onto our planetarium S/W ??

[thing]

I don't think most of us have a choice, I have to look about E to S because of trees, houses etc. Do you find when you're driving around that you look at houses and think 'that lucky swine must have a perfect view over all of the cardinal points'?

[radioactive]

My openish bit of sky is North Eastish through to South Westish well almost due to the way houses n stuff are positioned

[centroid]

Theres only one answer...South.

Its the way to get the best views of the most the objects over the course of a year.

Absolutely!!

South is the optimum direction, if your location permits it.

Dave

[gary1968]

My open sky is South, although I have a row of tress / houses in that direction and at this time of year Rigel is only just above the line of sight when due South. Its fairly dark though and I can pan around to the East but that is not as good.

I agree with the others though, South is the direction of choice for me................

Gary

[Martin 2]

My western sky is the best, very clear and dark, unfortunately the only way to view it would be to move into my neighbours house.

M2

[dynamo hum]

Interesting replies - thanks . I've found that I can get excellent views to the south and east though I do have a few trees that just extend over the southern horizon. I've had them cut back in the past and may do it again. Once they're full of leaf they're going to be quite a bit more obvious.

[algol]

south for me but only high south as there is a house across the street that sirius only just clears most nights. although i have seen lepus under orion so not too bad. east is a clear horizon but horribly light polluted, managable most nights but get a bit of cloud and it looks almost orange :shock: north and west are pretty boring. can never see anythin in west even though its a clear horizon for me and north has conifer trees in my way. doubt those things would die even if i poured toxic waste into soil, or would they?