We have tested an observation from Cévennes National Park, labeled IDSR (International Dark Sky Reserve) by IDA, south of France

[AstroSylv1]

Hello there,

In order to get a good feeling of what it’s like to do some stargazing from a labeled dark sky reserve area, some members of our local astronomy club have spent a full week in Saint-André-Capcèze, Lozère district, right between Villefort and Génolhac), at the guesthouse « Au Portaou » (www.au-portaou.com). Since the owners of this guesthouse can speak fluently English, German, Dutch and French (she’s from Belgium, he is from Germany) please have a look and feel free to go there a week or a couple of days, you will be impressed by the sky quality, and pleased by the warm welcoming B&B.

As for the sky, we had not seen such a dark sky, nor this level of seeing since our trip to Chile last year, amazing. Because of the weather conditions, not every night was fully successful, but still, we had a fantastic week.

The area where we have settled the scopes has a South, South-East orientation, and we had way enough space for 5 scopes, including 2 dobsonians of 400mm and 2 of 250mm. Full darkness was achieved thanks to the total absence of any artificial light, no street lamp, no parasite light bulbs of any kind, nothing... only The city of Alès, 40 to 50km south, could bring a faint light halo on the horizon. SQM was definitely and consistently over 21, easily. We had to use our head torches in order to walk around since we could not see each other’s in the dark, almost scary ? !! We are no longer used to this level of darkness, especially at our usual spots.

In the middle of the night, the Milky Way had arisen enough to see it from one side of the valley to the other side, completely, gorgeous with a lot of contrast.

Personally, I had never seen so many details in M101, I could keep on magnifying and pushing on M53, and had never seen so much contrast on M92 or simply on M3.

In total, I observed a list of about 40 objects, from tight doubles to the brightest Messier’s, and of course many galaxies from the NGC catalog in Virgo or Coma B in this season.

All in all, a fantastic sky, very clear and transparent, with a good seeing, and barely no light pollution (only this Alès halo, very faint). In the guesthouse, every single attention of the owners was making us feel like VIP guests : old and well restored house, excellent food from Patricia, the owner, Hans, her husband made some space in a small cellar so that we could store our chairs and gears during the day, etc... I totally recommend this place and this area.

If only light pollution was down to this level all over France, especially in the North East where I live ! For sure we will go there again next year !