Another area / viewing site marked up (Mon 21st september)

[bomberbaz]

In my seemingly never ending search for good viewing sites near to me I went to a place that is exactly 30 minutes from me. I was using the skytee armed with a 5" mak and a 4" F10 frac.

I won't labour the report on viewing because when I tried to split the Polaris double it was doable but poor, this kinda set the night as far as viewing went.

I only managed to split one more double and gave up less than half way though my list as the skies were simply not up to it. I spent a little time on saturn and jupiter but neither were yielding a lot of detail. (EDIT. I thought I saw hints of the grs and a retro stellarium look confirms this to be possible)

A chap stopped in his car to ask what I was up too so I let him have a gander at the two planets and he was made up by what he saw, very impressed although to me the views were awful. However to a first timer it would be the dogs doodahs, always happy to show people and encourage the hobby.

Anyway, back to the new site, actually two that I took readings at. One was a quick stop off on the way home from site A  to take readings.

Site A rated at 21.10 sqm and site B rated at 20.90 sqm on the light pollution map. I should mention site B is only 20 minutes from home but what's ten minutes travel amongst friends for viewing.

Now to SQM readings of my own rather than those from the interweb thingy. Site A gave a reading of 20.70 and site B 20.55. Down from the LP map readings but not significantly so. Both gave LP glow to the south where a number of towns are situated.

However the biggest difference to me was the fact that as site A is a further 5 miles deeper from the main light pollution source to the south, the horizonal glow was quite a bit less. Although at zenith and indeed anywhere other than  south there was nothing to choose from between the two.

Conclusion: If I am doing a planned trip with no low down viewing to the south then I travel 20 minutes to site B. If I want the darker horizon then it's only 20 minutes further. If I want to do some serious deep sky work (eg faint galaxies such as M33 and/or nebula like the horsehead) then neither site is good enough.

Steve