Dark site trip ? Part 2

[Timebandit]

 

 

Well the Sky's were intermittent last night with cloud and clear spells until around 7. And I had no plans to do a second dark site trip in a week. But then I went out about 7.30 to the car to fetch the mobile out to check for any messages. And looking up the Sky's were clear of cloud, clear of rain and clear of mist . No I thought I cannot do another trip out this week? But the Sky's were good and for months and months we have had terrible conditions on the whole. Sometimes you just need to take advantage of when and where and go for it. The decision to go was made ☺

While getting the OOuk vx8 out and putting in the car , I was thinking where do I go ? The same place as last time, to which did not overly impress me or somewhere new. The AZ4 was loaded and my favourite 3 eyepieces for this scope at present, the 20mm Nagler , 13Lvw and 7mm Pentax XW. All loaded in the car in a matter of a few minutes.

I have made my mind up to try somewhere new . A spot that I had past before on my way into deepest Wales on my way to the Dob Mob home land dark site. This site was probably less than half the mileage than the darkest site I had ever been to, and half the travel time. So car started, some relaxing music on the stereo on and off we trot. As I was driving out of the town lights, now and again I would slow down to check weather conditions and darkness. The cloud was still holding off and the Sky's were getting darker the further I went away from the city light pollution. 

After arriving in the rough location i wanted to try , I needed to find somewhere off the road and enough space to park the car and set up the scope. I managed to find a large run off area leading to a farm field. I thought a nice spot, and if Mr farmer came along then I would have no problem explaining what I was doing , and if need be then move to a different location.

The spot light was got out of the car (wrapped in a red bag to help cut the brightness) and now I could see what I was doing with some dim light available, the  AZ4 was put on a level spot. The OOuk8" was mounted on the AZ4 and caps off both ends and left to cool. While the scope was cooling I got the eyepieces out and sat them close to the scope.

With all the lights off now and my eyes starting to adapt to the dark conditions. Then wooow this site was so much darker. The majority of the  constellation were mixed in with so many stars shinning around them that they were difficult to see clearly. The Sky's were so much darker than the site earlier in the week. And the amount of new stars that could be seen in comparison confirmed to me the mag difference, that was so clearly different to the previous dark site trip. This reminded me of similar sky conditions that took place in the deepest Wales. Not quite to that standards , but certainly so much better with Mark one eyeballsbthan I had seen for quite a while. 

I decided to go through the same sort of target range as the previous dark site trip to see if there was a difference through the eyepiece at the scope end.

The big W Cassiopeia was located through the multiple stars around it. The targets NGC 559, 663, 457, 225, 129, 7789, M52 .  The cluster ranges was seemingly more difficult to see cleanly as the previous site earlier in the week, as these dark sky's were just showing far more stars in the eyepiece than more light pollution sky's. And these additional stars visible now were a distraction from the main targets clusters. On the plus site the contrast of the targets with the considerable   dark sky back ground certainly made these targets far more impressive. 

Then over to an old favourite, Orion. The M42 and M43 was just superb, this nebula was just standing out so much more in these dark sky's, just a cracking view I was receiving through the 20mm Nagler  . I was getting the full outer wisps experience of this nebula at this dark site. The best I have seen this target for a long time. These dark sky's were just adding so much more visually to what is given at light pollution area. 

Then into the target m46 and m47 for a look at these , going then onto m93 and the old favourite of m33. 

I then decided to a bit freelance and just slowly move to scope through these vast array of star fields that were visible through the eyepiece. Now and again i would find a cluster of stars to which I was not sure what the target was called (no star maps with me ?). And the same process of moving the scope around also captured numerous grey patches that could obviously be galaxy's, usually in light pollution sky's most galaxy's are difficult or not impossible to see. But here under these dark sky's they were appearing with me , without me struggling to look for them. And due to the dark background they had the added benefit of so much easier to grasp the full experience.

As the weather was getting colder now and the wind was picking up, and starting to give me the wind chill factor, then I decided to call it a night. The gear was packed away again in a few minutes. This grab and go set up was definitely a great decision to get me motivated to go out more, so easy.

On the drive back I had a smile on my face. As not only had the weather conditions been very good allowing the time and trouble of a trip out to be very worthwhile. But the search for a good dark site was in the bag. This dark site may not be as ink black as the deepest wales. But sky's were certainly very dark comparing them to my home location. And a lot darker in comparison to the dark site I had tried earlier in the week. And I think what had impressed me the most during the evening was that those galaxy's were making an appearance in the eyepiece without me really looking for them. It did make me think if the 8" can produce great results like this at the dark site then the 14" would of been of been fantastic. But it's not a grab and go.

I look forward to the next dark site trip , and next time a may try and take some additional information with me to try and figure out what galaxy's I am actually looking at. But then again i may be just to busy seeing how many galaxy's I can actually find at a true dark site ?

 

 

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[scarp15]

Good to read that this second exploratory trip was a success in terms of being a pleasant enough location and a marked improvement on sky quality. The weather has been quite obliging and there is a nice flood of incoming reports. Hope you remain enthused to go back there, it does sound good and a realistic drive from home, inevitability accepting a little compromise otherwise it has to be planned as an overnight stay. One of my locations has become so familiar it feels a bit like a home from home - not as dark as I could venture to, but practical to reach and when the transparency is good can clock between 21.1 and 21.3 mag.      

[25585]

Need a planetarium app on your phone, & proper cold weather clothing. 

I'm impressed the VX8 is light enough for an AZ4.