Too many stars!!!

[Chefgage]

I am in Devon in bortle 3 or 4 skies. This is a change from where I live which is bortle 8. I cannot believe the amount of stars I can see. I am struggling to see a lot of the constellations because of the shear amount of stars!

It's currently 1am and I am imaging the north America nebula, but I cannot help but stand there looking up at all the stars. The fact I can clearly see the milky way is just fantastic.

Anyway back to having a few beers, listening to the DSLR clicking away and me getting a stiff neck looking up!!

Edited August 3, 2021 by Chefgage

[mikemarotta]

I had the same experience the first time I went to a club star party at a dark sky sight. I grew up in the city and I usually live in cities. Once it got dark, I could not find anything. The club outreach person came over with his green laser and spent time with me getting me oriented. 

Just enjoy your embarrassment of riches and keep us posted.

Best Regards,

Mike M.

[Chefgage]

31 minutes ago, mikemarotta said:

I had the same experience the first time I went to a club star party at a dark sky sight. I grew up in the city and I usually live in cities. Once it got dark, I could not find anything. The club outreach person came over with his green laser and spent time with me getting me oriented. 

Just enjoy your embarrassment of riches and keep us posted.

Best Regards,

Mike M.

I visited this dark sky area last year. The amount of difference between my usual bortle 8 skies compared to this bortle 4 is amazing. I need to buy a few more lottery tickets so I can move down here

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Chefgage

[nephilim]

Glad your able to experience it. I'm not in any way boasting, I live at the foot of the North Pennines where the skies are Bottle 3-4 .With only one old Street light in the village well out of my view, locals with dogs have to use a head torch to take them out for their evening business 😂

 On the downside to this (and there's always a downside 😒) with the North Pennines just behind me & the Lake District 10 miles in front of me, we're very prone to 'interesting' weather (we have the uk's only named wind, The Helm Wind, when that starts it sounds and feels like a massive jet engine which can go on for several days) Then we get the associated cloud that comes with living in-between 2 mountainous regions, and mist and fog, rain, hail, sleet, snow, cats & dogs & whatever else it fancies hurling at us. So while the clear nights we get are stunningly pristine & jet black,  there's so few of them we have to make the most of it whether it's the weekend or a weekday with work in the morning.

I've only recently taken up AP & after several shockingly clear nights in a row, including tonight but darkness only between around 11:30pm & 3:15am I'm very close to dropping asleep where I stand 😂 I've another 40mins until my current imaging run finishes then I can collapse on my bed for a couple of hours then get up early to take flats 🥱🥱😴😴 

I grew up on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales so I've always had very dark skies. I'm a little ashamed to say that it's far too easy to take these things for granted & we need to  spend more time appreciating what we have here.

Enjoy the skies while your there.

Steve

Edited August 3, 2021 by nephilim

[Sunshine]

This sounds like the best problem to have, and with enough beers you can literally look up and see star trails sans camera and other imaging kit!

Edited August 3, 2021 by Sunshine

[Zermelo]

Enjoy 😀

I think perhaps there is (a) the "Saturn moment", where you first see something in a telescope and get hooked, and (b) the "dark sky moment" when you see just how many stars are visible to the naked eye. Mine was on a very clear night in the north of Arran.

[Barry-W-Fenner]

10 hours ago, Chefgage said:

I am in Devon in bortle 3 or 4 skies. This is a change from where I live which is bortle 8. I cannot believe the amount of stars I can see. I am struggling to see a lot of the constellations because of the shear amount of stars!

It's currently 1am and I am imaging the north America nebula, but I cannot help but stand there looking up at all the stars. The fact I can clearly see the milky way is just fantastic.

Anyway back to having a few beers, listening to the DSLR clicking away and me getting a stiff neck looking up!!

I feel your pain (joy!)

I have recently returned to my bortle 6 sky from an amazing bortle 3 in Holsworthy, West Devon. I didnt manage to catch the milky way on this occasion as the moon was fat! However the amount of stars visible to the naked eye is incredible. To add to the difficulty in finding your target the number of stars multiply again when you look through the finder scope 🙂 I was armed with my 12" - However I ended up laying on the bench table with my 8x40 bins just scanning the sky and enjoyng the rural peace and quiet. What a beautiful place!

 

Baz

[DaveS]

When I was a kid I went to boarding school in rural Dorset, and remember nights when it was so dark and transparent that familiar constellations were buried in a sea of stars. This would have been just at the turn of the '70s when LP was very much less. I reckon it must have been Bortle 2.

Moving here from London in late '18 I had a similar though less intense experience, walking out onto the patio on my first night, looking up and seeing the milky way glittering overhead. The difference between SQI 18.25 and SQI 21.66 is substantial.

[wookie1965]

I have been to a few astronomy meets had one good night in Buxton but by far my best night was in Scotland on a cold October night. 

There had been showers during the day and we didn't think we would have had a good night how wrong we were. 

Come 8pm the first stars came out and as it got darker the more came out it was a sea of diamonds in the sky constellations like you have said were hard to distinguish but I managed it. 

M33 by eye was amazing clusters galore I had a 5" Refractor but I could see objects that from home I would need a 12-14" scope. 

Dark skies make a enormous difference. 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

26 minutes ago, DaveS said:

When I was a kid I went to boarding school in rural Dorset, and remember nights when it was so dark and transparent that familiar constellations were buried in a sea of stars. This would have been just at the turn of the '70s when LP was very much less. I reckon it must have been Bortle 2.

Moving here from London in late '18 I had a similar though less intense experience, walking out onto the patio on my first night, looking up and seeing the milky way glittering overhead. The difference between SQI 18.25 and SQI 21.66 is substantial.

That sounds amazing.

My current LP is bortle 6 - 19.11 and the place I visit in Devon is Bortle 3 - 21.81 A huge differance.  It is dis-heartning coming back to my bortle 6 sky. The only saving grace is that my local council are currenly rolling out the new LED street light program. They aim to reduce LP and actually point the light towards the foot path. Its certainly wont make for a Devon sky, However every little helps.

The ideal solution would be to move down that way!

[Chefgage]

6 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

I feel your pain (joy!)

I have recently returned to my bortle 6 sky from an amazing bortle 3 in Holsworthy, West Devon. I didnt manage to catch the milky way on this occasion as the moon was fat! However the amount of stars visible to the naked eye is incredible. To add to the difficulty in finding your target the number of stars multiply again when you look through the finder scope 🙂 I was armed with my 12" - However I ended up laying on the bench table with my 8x40 bins just scanning the sky and enjoyng the rural peace and quiet. What a beautiful place!

 

Baz

That's where we are! Holsworthy, not the place in your photo

with no moon the milky way stretched from one side of the campsite over head and disappeared the other side, amazing to look at.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Chefgage