Show us your horizon

[Swoop1]

Here is mine. The red lines indicate locations of street lights or properties with permanantly illuminated insecurity lights. The green line is roughly South. The Blue line roughly aligns with Polaris.

If I were to move to the oter side of the garden, I would open up my eastern horizon but loose a lot of South/ South West. The East/ North East is generally quite hazy due to London and High Wycombe

 North East

South/South West

Edited June 14, 2019 by Swoop1

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Soz, it's too wet to take pics at the moment. Yours doesn't look too bad.

My modest garden contains 40ft trees to the west, 6ft high dividing fences north and south, with the house blocking most of the east. i.e. "totally pants".

 

[LukeSkywatcher]

Mine has very tall trees to the south. A 6ft2in fence on the east and west sides. The house blocks the north. From my patio, I can only observe from about 30 degrees upwards N,E,W.

No view south.

[almcl]

Lights, trees, houses, the usual:

[Gina]

I'll take some photos sometime...

[Singlin]

Attached is my Horizon file that can be loaded into Sky safari.

Anyone is welcome to download it out of curiosity

[Macavity]

No picture... But I have reasonably free horizons down to 14-17 deg
(not great but?) from NE to NW. (The rest is behind my house!). 😉

Oh yeah... Just noticed a "brand new" 12-15 ft high "weed-tree" has
appeared on my Southern Meridian (again)! Neighbours' garden(s)
are ever full of such "surprises"? Few days of Summer rain and... 😼

[Gina]

I'll take some photos to build a panorama later but meanwhile here is a daytime view from my all sky camera positioned just above my observatory roof.

[niallk]

I take a 10min drive to this spot on the coast of Cork - to have no light domes looking south over the Celtic sea.  I get low horizons all round, so require low wind with my 15" dob - even without the shroud!  This is dawn after a night's observing...

Edited June 15, 2019 by niallk

[FenlandPaul]

Great topic!

This is one of my nearby sites, or rather it’s 50 yards down a path from it, but the views are the same. Red is approximately north and green is approximately south. The edge of the Fens give wide open skies, but it can get a little too breezy for dob. There is occasional direct light from an aggregates yard to the north, depending on whether they’ve been left on; if they have then I park my car to block it.  I get light domes from Cambridge (9 miles), St Ives (4 miles) and Huntingdon (7 miles), and an ever growing threat from the A14 upgrade and the new town of Northstowe. This is a 3 minute drive in a 4x4 from home.

I have another sight that is better protected from northerly winds on the other side of my village, but the light from towns is worse. My back garden is like many others - convenient, with no direct light, but a fair bit of ambient light and houses / trees meaning my window of sky is limited, but usable.

Paul

[scarp15]

A journey into Northumberland takes me on occasion to this low horizon location.

 

[mikeDnight]

From the garden:

North.

 

North east.

 

East.

 

 

South West.

 

 

West.

 

 

 

 

South

Edited June 22, 2019 by mikeDnight

[Paz]

I have a small garden with high obstacles in all directions. The left edge of this photo is north-ish... Luckily in other directions it's a bit better. I have to go out the front for low southern horizons - theres a small corridor to the east/south where I can see down to 10 degrees or so!

Edited June 22, 2019 by Paz

[kirkster501]

Same with me, obstacles all around and the only bit I can get is the 80 degrees east and 20 degrees west of the Meridian line.  I have no view of any horizon from my observatory, in the middle of a housing development.  It's either that, or no observatory.  That is why I also have portable equipment of a NEQ6 and a C925.

 

[Peco4321]

West, south, east and north from my usual garden observing position. I can see the North Star ok to polar align but obviously limited with these darn trees!!  

[scarp15]

This is my observing window from the back yard, which is OK; due south is just above the wheelie bin.

That is fine as I plan on going observing overnight from this location with binoculars late summer (picture two and three), not a wheelie bin in sight.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by scarp15

[Peter Drew]

Relatively unobstructed view all round apart from nearby hills that block light pollution from local towns and a row of 3 wind turbines due South that interfere with low objects.     😀

[Demonperformer]

Interesting topic.

Will do some photos later, but thinking about it, I like to complain about the streetlights, trees, parked vehicles, etc. But this is a pic I took back in 2013 from my LP-ridden, obstructed front garden (as it came out of DSS). It's Messier 7, which reaches a massive 4 degrees above the horizon at my latitude, so I guess I don't have it too bad really.

[nitram100]

Horizon.. what's that? lol sorry I live in London.

[Demonperformer]

Here's the view. South is just on the left edge of the big tree.

[Geoff Barnes]

Who needs thousands of SpaceX satellites in the sky when you've got all those power lines cluttering your view, terrible!  

[chiltonstar]

My eastern horizon, during a spectroscopy session....

Chris

[Demonperformer]

2 hours ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Who needs thousands of SpaceX satellites in the sky when you've got all those power lines cluttering your view, terrible!  

They actually aren't too much of a problem as they disappear during the stacking process.

[kirkster501]

I think many of us in housing developments just have to make do with what we have.

For sure, and this is probably the case for many of us,  when I next move home the horizons will be one of my considerations and I will be moving to a village somewhere on the Nott's/Leicestershire border.  Even then there'll have to a compromise.  There could be a lovely house that me and SWMBO (Louise) loves, but that is not so good for astro.  Even if find the perfect house and site, some houses could be built in the future spoiling the views or the next door neighbours may have a penchant for having their security lights on all night.  Unless you live in a house in the middle of nowhere then there'll always have to be compromises.

I'll settle for what I have and some better weather.......🙄

[LukeSkywatcher]

Here's mine. In no particular order:

It's not as bad as it looks because I have a huge patio, my house is a bungalow and pretty dark skies. The worst is looking south with all the trees.