Dark skies of the Borders.

[cotterless45]

A week in Northumberland and this week in the Scottish Borders.A couple of hours of clear sky. Last evening and half past three this morning were just stunning. We're some 15 miles inland from Berwick upon Tweed, it's open countryside. 

The sky was as dark and as stunning that I've seen in the western Isles. 

Firstly the Milky Way was a wide twisting broken bright stream across the sky . Through Cygnus, rift and coalsac , it halted before splitting carrying on down to the horizon. Next the constellations . It takes some time to get adjusted to so many stars. Mars helped in orientation.

This morning , Cassiopeia was not a "W" ! It looked like a wide twisted Perseus. Orion looked huge , his multi-starred club /bow arcing to the huge Hyades.Not often that I've seen the shape of Monoceros. Gemini could not be made out , if you were unaware of its size and shape. Our ancestors must have sat around fires to get the constellation shapes.

Auriga was breathtaking . The odd fuzz showed where the larger clusters were. Including a very bright patch of the double cluster. My evening view showed the swirl and knots of M33 through 15x70 binoculars. M31 just filled the field of view. The MW just showed a background of bark brown star filled areas.

 

This area of the country is scarcely visited and well worth exploring, especially for delights the very dark skies bring,

Stay safe and clear skies , Nick

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Nice read Nick!

I managed some better quality sky's recently (high bortle 3 - low 4) and was amazed to see the milky way and naked eye objects like Andromeda. As you say the sky was loaded with so many stars! I really hope to get to a very dark site one day!

 

Regards

Edited October 13, 2020 by Barry-W-Fenner

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

It's fantastic up there Nick, agreed. My route to Kielder took me to the end of the M6 and turning right into Scotland, driving east along the border through nice places like Canonbie.

Bortle 3 skies all along that route and very picturesque.

I'll definitely be going up there for short breaks once the pandemic eases off.

 

[wookie1965]

I'm glad you got some clear skies Nick unfortunately for me my weekend in Bala at the end of the month. I expect it to be cancelled any day now especially as Merseyside is Tier 3 so cannot leave area or stay out overnight I'm devastated to be honest only thing I had to look forward to this year. 

Maybe when this covid thing is over I can take a trip up there. 

Smashing report as usual. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by wookie1965