African skies- Wow!

[Swoop1]

I have just returned from a 2 week holiday in Africa- Zimbabwe and South Africa. I took my binoculars with me as I know the skies in the part of SA I visit are dark. 

The first outing was at the hotel in Victoria Falls. I found an area outside where I could hide from the uplighters and pointed the bins at the sky. Straight onto a globular cluster! I cast about for a bit enjoying the view- open clusters, at least one other globular. Heaven. I tried for some DSLR images and will have to wait to see how the raw data looks when i have had the chance to upload it.

In SA, I stayed at a Cheetah sanctuary- a farm in the middle of nowhere with little light pollution- Uitenhage/ Port Elizabeth in the distance over the hills. The Milky Way was gorgeous once my eyes had adapted. Lots of bino action with more clusters than a box of breakfast cereal and very pleasant to see Jupiter so high early in the evening. Once again, i will have to wait to see what the images look like once raw is uploaded. 

I think I need a travel scope........

[Stargazer McCabe]

Glad you had a good trip... We've just returned from 8 years in East & Central Africa... Man I'm missing those skies...

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Sounds great! I had my bins with me in SA some years back and the views were awesome

[Stu]

Great stuff. Had a short time in Tanzania on honeymoon and managed to take a scope with me. The skies were fabulous, only trouble was we were amongst trees a fair amount and I was too scared of getting eaten to properly concentrate on observing!!

Glad you enjoyed your time, I can definitely recommend getting a small widefield scope, it just gives that much more flexibility than binos I find. I used a William Optics SD66mm and TV76 with great results.

[DirkSteele]

There is a reason why I keep going back to Africa....

 

[Swoop1]

43 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

There is a reason why I keep going back to Africa....

 

What would that be then Dirk?

[DirkSteele]

38 minutes ago, Swoop1 said:

What would that be then Dirk?

Amazing wildlife 

 

I believe there are almost too many reasons to list when it comes to why Africa is such a wonderful destination.  Those night skies are right up near the top of the list though.

[BGazing]

Or you can opt for Seychelles and get the corals sans malaria.

Technically, it is still Africa.