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Isle of Man night skies Wow Wow Wow

starman1969

By starman1969
in The Astro Lounge

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starman1969

starman1969

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Took a trip over the water to the Isle of Man just recently. Only a few hours on the ferry from Heysham, yet I had never visited before. The trip was more about seeing the island itself, rather than an all out astro fest, although I knew that if the night skies happened to be clear during my visit they would look pretty spectacular and I was not disappointed. I did deliberately book for the new moon.

Literally 15 minutes drive out of the capital, Douglas, and I stopped on a quiet road to clearly see the stunning Milky Way overhead. I had not even planned where to go to observe/image the sky, so I just drove around a few places until I found somewhere I could setup. Thankfully I found a clearing with some nice trees. The trees obscured the horizon, but at least they made a nice foreground, and I got some decent shots that I'm reasonably happy with.

It was all a bit of a rush because I'd never planned in advance anywhere to go to do this, probably because I thought it would never be this clear. I definitely could have got much better pictures had I planned better, although I am happy with what I got because I might have not got anything at all if it was cloudy the whole trip. This first night happened to be the only clear night of all three, and it could not have been any clearer.

This quick pic I took gives some idea how dark the sky was.

post-15011-0-60428800-1412507639_thumb.j

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hadyn42

hadyn42

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Hello Starman 1969.

A very nice picture indeed.

I am glad you enjoyed your short trip to our island.

The next time you will to have plan a visit up to our observatory at Foxdale if you have got time?

My wife and I are both keen astronomers, we had an hour out just observing the moon last night and managed a glimpse at M31, but there was a bit too much moon light pollution to get much detail, ha, ha...

Best regards, Hadyn - Isle of Man

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Paul M

Paul M

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I've been a number of times, most recently on the high speed cat from Fleetwood about 4 years ago (1 sailing per year only!).

The wife's father is Manx (living in Fleetwood) so she has family there still. 

I've never given thought to the night sky over there. It sounds good though.

The wife keeps saying that we should have an extended stay on the island. A long weekend maybe. It would be worth taking the time to find a dark sky location if we did get over again some time.

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scarp15

scarp15

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Very nice image, I have never been even though I grew up on the Lancashire coast (not so far from Paul M). Friends of ours have had several family hol's there and love it, perhaps one to look into and take the binoculars at least. 

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starman1969

starman1969

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Hello Starman 1969.

A very nice picture indeed.

I am glad you enjoyed your short trip to our island.

The next time you will to have plan a visit up to our observatory at Foxdale if you have got time?

My wife and I are both keen astronomers, we had an hour out just observing the moon last night and managed a glimpse at M31, but there was a bit too much moon light pollution to get much detail, ha, ha...

Best regards, Hadyn - Isle of Man

Thanks Hadyn

Funnily enough a chap from an astronomical society over there spoke at our club in Blackpool just the other month. He talked about all the dark sky locations there are over in the Isle of Man. I could have got in contact and joined a viewing session or something, but the time didn't quite allow. I'll definitely try to visit again soon.

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starman1969

starman1969

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You must have been thrilled to have processed that image. Amazing!!

Do you mind me asking what kit you used, exposures, etc?

Thanks.

This one was taken with a Nikon D800e and a 14-24mm lens at 14mm f/2.8 for 30 secs at ISO 1600. I lit up the trees with the car headlights.

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hadyn42

hadyn42

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Thanks Hadyn

Funnily enough a chap from an astronomical society over there spoke at our club in Blackpool just the other month. He talked about all the dark sky locations there are over in the Isle of Man. I could have got in contact and joined a viewing session or something, but the time didn't quite allow. I'll definitely try to visit again soon.

Hello Starman 1969.

It was Howard Parkin who gave the talk to you guys. I will send you a link to our website in this message. Please give me a shout when you are over here again. I am on the committee and can go up to the observatory at anytime and can give you a look around. Normally we have our meetings on the first Thursday and the third Friday of each month! Here is a link to our society:

http://www.iomastronomy.org/   Also our dark sky sites:  http://www.iomastronomy.org/DSO/dso.html

Best regards, Hadyn - IOM

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starman1969

starman1969

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Can I ask

was this just the one shot at 30sec or stacked images? I would kill to get a shot like that....awesome!

It is a single exposure, helped a fair bit by the mega dark sky. I did have to clone out the trees whilst I processed the sky, but it does not look much different to how it looked by eye.

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Dave_D

Dave_D

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breaks my heart looking at the Isle of Man on google maps and it's lack of nasty 'orrible street lights and then look at my local area where they're every 50 feet :(

went to Port Erin and Peel, years ago... freaked out at the Moddey Dhoo stories but wouldn't mind living there... wouldn't mind one little bit.

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