Glad to be back in my dark skies

[Kon]

I have been away on holidays and to see family in Athens and to my horror I could hardly see any stars through the city lights. I am so used to my bortle 4/3 skies and the fact that the whole Milky Way arch is so bright and defined. It makes me wonder how others that leave in inner cities manage their observations, it must be very challenging.

Since coming back the weather has been horrible and tonight I managed 1hr of clear skies. I used my 8" Dob with a ES 82 degree 6.7mm EP. I started with Saturn and the atmosphere seemed rather stable. Cassini division was clearly defined in an on/off basis (I suppose the seeing was changing with incoming clouds). I then moved to Jupiter and nice orange/brown bands were obvious but no sign of the GRS in the current position. The 4 moons were lined nicely and could fit in the FOV. Finally, I moved to the moon and had a quick look at it and I was rather impressed with my 82 EP that it could almost fit it in the FOV.

Although it was a quick session and the bright moon did not help for DSOs, I am glad to be back in my dark skies and observing again. I am also sold on the 82 degree EP and looking to upgrade the rest of them with wide ones.

[nephilim]

7 hours ago, Kon said:

I have been away on holidays and to see family in Athens and to my horror I could hardly see any stars through the city lights. I am so used to my bortle 4/3 skies and the fact that the whole Milky Way arch is so bright and defined. It makes me wonder how others that leave in inner cities manage their observations, it must be very challenging.

Since coming back the weather has been horrible and tonight I managed 1hr of clear skies. I used my 8" Dob with a ES 82 degree 6.7mm EP. I started with Saturn and the atmosphere seemed rather stable. Cassini division was clearly defined in an on/off basis (I suppose the seeing was changing with incoming clouds). I then moved to Jupiter and nice orange/brown bands were obvious but no sign of the GRS in the current position. The 4 moons were lined nicely and could fit in the FOV. Finally, I moved to the moon and had a quick look at it and I was rather impressed with my 82 EP that it could almost fit it in the FOV.

Although it was a quick session and the bright moon did not help for DSOs, I am glad to be back in my dark skies and observing again. I am also sold on the 82 degree EP and looking to upgrade the rest of them with wide ones.

Nice report there Ken. Even though you only managed an hour, I bet it was nice just to be out & able to see some stars again 🙂

I know exactly what you mean when it comes to the city & the night sky . I've spent the last 9+ years living in the middle of nowhere in between the Lakes & the North Pennines ( I also grew up on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales with lovely star lit sky). I've moved a couple of times during this period but in the same area. My skies are also Bortle 3-4 & the village,if you can call it that, has no streetlights so to get to the car in winter it means a head torch. On a clear night the Milky way pretty much stretches from horizon to horizon with M31 easily visible directly with averted vision not needed.
I visited a friend in Leeds a couple of years ago ( I think i've visited cities about 3 times in the last 10-15yrs as they stress me out 😂)  & couldn't believe it when I stepped outside at night, it was like daylight with no stars visible at all. Its maybe a little better these days for the Astrophotographers out there as good quality narrowband filters do away with most concerns about LP. I do however feel sorry for anyone with even a passing interest in visual astronomy who lives in a city (or anyone for that matter who just wants to look up & wonder about everything 'up there'), especially the children. I work in the outdoor education industry in the Lake District & we have young people from schools all over the country who come to do our week long residential outdoor courses. 
Our centre is near the end of a valley, actually a dead end that goes nowhere so no lights from through traffic, its absolutely pitch black down there & it saddens me the amount of children who cant believe their eyes when they first step outside on a clear dark night, I say saddens as it means they dont have access to this wonder back at their homes. They're amazed as many of them have never even seen a hint of the Milky Way, i'd say that all had seen the Moon but many hadn't a clue just how many stars can, if the conditions are right be seen in the night sky.

Just before they leave to go home on the last day of their course the students are always asked which part of the week they saw as the highlight/ which part did they enjoy the most?  Keep in mind, we take them rock climbing, paddling (Canadian open canoes) Gorge walking which involves abseiling down a waterfall, hiking, orienteering & for one night the older ones (Year 6 onwards) spend a night on the hills wild camping, a large percentage have never experienced any of these things . If the weather has been good, as in 'clear sky good' then at least two out of every ten will say seeing the night sky, if they've spent a night on the hills & its been a clear sky, that number can be as high as half of them.

I'm preaching to the converted here but the night sky has been absolutely destroyed by artificial lighting, plus theres the masses of unnecessary lighting that stays on all night serving no purpose what so ever. I know that some councils are trying to limit the amount of LP in their villages, towns etc but really its nowhere near enough & even with the drive for darker skies I fear that one day there will only be the odd pocket of truly dark sky left available to witness the Milky Way etc & the only people benefitting from that most definitely wont be the youngsters (or people of any age really) who live in these overcrowded, over lit places.

Apologies, that turned into a little bit of a rant but it felt good to get it out there 🙂

Steve

Edited August 20, 2021 by nephilim

[Kon]

13 hours ago, nephilim said:

Apologies, that turned into a little bit of a rant but it felt good to get it out there

I totally agree with you and you do not need to apologise.  To be honest with you my interest in the hobby really ignited when we moved out of city lights and I could see the Milky Way and on clear nights  the sky was illuminated by stars (summer or winter). Light pollution is really an issue and I am afraid things are only going to get worst as cities are constantly expanding and with cheap to run LEDs everywhere.

[nephilim]

Yes. I was already living in a fairly out of the way area anyway but moved to the foot of Cross Fell in the Northern Pennines & found it was a whole new level of dark, as in can't see your hand in front of your face darkness, plus the back garden has extensive uninterrupted views for miles (below is the view from my garden).

So after a few years pretty much out of the hobby after giving up due to sub par gear due to a quite limited budget, I've been lucky enough to be able to save for the last 10 months and buy  a fairly decent AP kit. Similar to you, my new location gave me the motivation to  try again & I'm very glad I did. I'm now very much looking forward to a (fingers crossed) good winter.

All the best

Steve

[Nik271]

Looks a very nice set up! A big table is most convenient,  it's begging for one of those small tabletop dobs for grab and go.

By contrast I can read a large print book in the 'darkness' here in suburban Oxford. And just now they approved a plan to build 500 more houses and offices only a kilometer from us. There is a lot of local objections but of course money talks loudest  and the plans were approved together with building roads in the green belt and what not.  We humans will not be happy until we pave over everything and drive all else to extinction.

Despite this there is a lot to see even with light pollution. I managed to view the nova RS Ophiuci yesterday, it has provided a lot of action recently.  

Edited August 20, 2021 by Nik271

[nephilim]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

Looks a very nice set up! A big table is most convenient,  it's begging for one of those small tabletop dobs for grab and go.

By contrast I can read a large print book in the 'darkness' here in suburban Oxford. And just now they approved a plan to build 500 more houses and offices only a kilometer from us. There is a lot of local objections but of course money talks loudest  and the plans were approved together with building roads in the green belt and what not.  We humans will not be happy until we pave over everything and drive all else to extinction.

Despite this there is a lot to see even with light pollution. I managed to view the nova RS Ophiuci yesterday, it has provided a lot of action recently.  

@Nik271 Thanks. I'm very lucky out here really , in fact I couldn't really wish for a better spot, well I could but I dont think there are many job opportunities out in the Atacama Desert 😃
Sorry to hear about the approval of the housing estate near you, no doubt the proposed offices you mention will have the obligatory & completely wasteful & unnecessary 24hr lighting that seems to come as standard with those hateful boxes. I agree with you whole heartedly regarding humans & the parasitic urge to take everything from the planet & give nothing back in return apart from pollution & disease. I dont think it'll end until we no longer have a choice due to every square inch been covered in concrete or Tarmac.
I haven't seen the Nova due to either work & having to go to bed early (out of the house by 5:30am) or weather so i'm rather envious of you there 🙂.
Regarding LP, I know how you feel. I grew up on a farm just outside a small village in Nidderdale 4 miles from the town of Harrogate on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. My love of astronomy started at about 8yrs old when my best mate & I would head off down our back fields on a winters evening & sit against a fence under a big oak tree, staring up at the night sky with my ghetto blaster with Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds playing in the background ( that sounds all fairy tale cheesy kids book stuff there 😂😂. Don't worry, I'm not about to burst into song, there is an actual point to this). It was there that I taught myself the constellations, saw my first shooting 'star',  a few years later on my 16th birthday (celebrated by a day trip to Jodrell Bank & a 60mm Tasco refractor 😂) I saw the rings of Saturn & the Leo Triplet for the first time & also down there a year later believe it or not was the only time I have ever see the Aroura Borealis, not just very pale hints of green but very distinct green, faint red & slightly grey curtains of colour that lasted a good 2hrs or so. Unfortunately these days I wouldnt be able to do that as theres a soulless, ugly housing estate on the other side of that field now, full of those grim & depressingly characterless boxes that some people sadly call 'home'. The sky is just a dull whitish orange & the only stars clearly visible on a clear, crisp winter night  leaning against that oak tree looking SE are Sirius, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran & Procyon, but even these giants are faint. Looking North is a little better but thats rapidly changing.

Harrogate (like many other (if not all) towns is slowly crawling out in every direction like a cancer (bit of a cliche but its not far from the truth). In the end it will swallow up the village I grew up near & then he farm as its suburbs are pretty much on the doorstep now & the farm itself will just be a suburb soon. There are two houses on the farm, the main farm house & what was the farm managers house that my parents rent out. My sister & I had decided a long time ago that we would eventually retire into them but have now agreed that the whole lot will be going up for sale when the time comes as I dont really fancy living on a Barratt housing estate. First world 'problems' I know but all the above just highlights how quickly we're losing our dark skies. I dont have exact figures just approximations, so I'd say that when I lived on the farm up until around1990 the skies were probably around Bortle 4, now its a definite 6 in the South maybe even 7 and a little darker in the North for now.

Where I live now is luckily pretty safe from development (in my lifetime anyway) & we get no through traffic due to our village ending at the village green & a farmers track up onto the fells. If you dont already I'd be considering AP with narrowband been a good way to go in light polluted areas & travel to a dark sight for visual work. Even though i'd benefit from a large reflector I'm only doing AP now, I've only just started out but i'm really enjoying it.

As usual I seem to how typed out a version of War & Peace 🙄 (I'd be surprised if your still awake 😂) but i've very strong feelings when it comes to the human race, its cruel greed & thirst to destroy anything thats beautiful. I'd best get some sleep now.

All the Best

Steve
 

[scarp15]

It is quite scandalous really that with recent deregulation of planning laws, enabling developers to pretty much put up what they like, where they like with little or no regard to local public opinion, protection of wildlife let alone extending light domes and increasing light pollution. There seem to be very few fit for purpose contemporary housing developments in the UK with Eco emphasis, let alone architectural integrity. Dark sky status is of paramount important to curb this and more areas need to be awarded this conservation recognition.  

Edited August 21, 2021 by scarp15

[Nik271]

Its so simple to deal with light pollution, especially with modern street lights which can be remotely controlled.

Lighting costs  can be something like 10% of a town electricity bill and you'd imagine dimming the bloody things after midnight is a no-brainer, saves both energy and money.  Hopefully with the projected energy price increases and the plan to charge cars and heat houses with heat pumps this should translate to a drive to save it at night for where its really needed.

[Kon]

@Nik271 and @scarp15 wishful thinking about controlling lights and housing. I was reading some news of one of the local council (back in Athens) and they were proud to have installed low energy leds that can be left all night long. So my feeling is that inner cities are a lost hope for darkness but I would like to be proven wrong. I am in the country side (outside Swindon) with only two neighbours with luckily no flood lights or street lights. But us humans we are destroying everything with no slowing down.

[jetstream]

3 hours ago, scarp15 said:

It is quite scandalous really that with recent deregulation of planning laws, enabling developers to pretty much put up what they like, where they like with little or no regard to local public opinion, protection of wildlife let alone extending light domes and increasing light pollution. There seem to be very few fit for purpose contemporary housing developments in the UK with Eco emphasis, let alone architectural integrity. Dark sky status is of paramount important to curb this and more areas need to be awarded this conservation recognition.  

You would think UK astronomers and astronomers everywhere would care- and yet @Sunshine made a great thread in the Lounge about dark sky designations in parks and there was not much interest. Yes, I know we referenced Canada but as an astronomer and one that lives with nature I'm excited to hear about nature reserves or dark sky parks anywhere in the world.

Puzzling.

[jetstream]

On 19/08/2021 at 18:47, Kon said:

I am so used to my bortle 4/3 skies

The Bortle scale really confuses me- a Bortle 4/3 mentioned and another member mentions a 3/4? I just dont understand it- not a judgment to those that use it for sure.

To me the MW is the easiest guide- as its possible to have good zenith darkness near overlapping light domes, depending where one is on the curve of the domes.

How does M33 show naked eye from your skies? It should be easy at Bortle 3

3

Rural sky

6.6–7.0

21.69–21.89

the zodiacal light is striking in spring and autumn, and color is still visible some light pollution evident at the horizon clouds are illuminated near the horizon, dark overhead nearer surroundings are vaguely visible the summer Milky Way still appears complex M15, M4, M5, and M22 are naked-eye objects M33 is easily visible with averted vision limiting magnitude with 12.5" reflector is 16

[ONIKKINEN]

7 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Its so simple to deal with light pollution, especially with modern street lights which can be remotely controlled.

Lighting costs  can be something like 10% of a town electricity bill and you'd imagine dimming the bloody things after midnight is a no-brainer, saves both energy and money.  Hopefully with the projected energy price increases and the plan to charge cars and heat houses with heat pumps this should translate to a drive to save it at night for where its really needed.

Just one accident that is even vaguely related to dark roads is enough to permanently bury this idea, at least that's what i think. All it takes is one stick carried by the wind or a piece of plastic broken off someones old busted bumper on a road and a motorist dies. Dark roads are deathtraps and its perfectly reasonable to want every road to be fully lit at all times, including midnight. If roads are not lit drivers will need to rely on high-beams or external lights, which are also dangerous for other people.

Some amateur astronomers somewhere complaining about city lights will be forgotten as soon as safety is concerned. If all cars had working headlights, if everyone used high-visibility clothing outdoors, if every cyclist had a light it would be possible to dim city lights but since this is not at all true i doubt it will happen in any big urban area in any part of the world.

[jetstream]

Seriously?

You should try driving over here or in the rural USA.. not sure about yours but our headlights work well.

[ONIKKINEN]

14 minutes ago, jetstream said:

Seriously?

You should try driving over here or in the rural USA.. not sure about yours but our headlights work well.

Finland is probably the most desolate country in Europe, outside "big" cities there is nothing but forests and unlit rural roads so i definitely know what you mean, but i think you might have missed the point.

The point was that someone will have broken headlights, someone will wear dark clothing with no hi-vis strips in the dead of night and think that "that car sees me, i mean im crossing the road they must see me", some cyclist will cycle without lights in the dead of night, but this is an issue only in cities with higher traffic (also where there should be lighting). Road lights remove most of these issues. Of course it doesn't make sense to light up every road everywhere, if some rural road sees 5 cars per hour then its probably not a good use of money to light that empty stretch of road. Nobody out there is seriously planning on covering all rural areas with city lights, its just that rural areas are disappearing pretty fast around the world.

[jetstream]

53 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

If all cars had working headlights,

I have not seen any cars here without working headlights, at times you might see one vehicle with a light out, but its very rare. Headlights are on 24/7 here and if the police see a car with no headlights your pulled over immediately.

Not surprisingly I run Nokian Hakka 9's and Russian Pirellis, all studded for winter.

Edited August 21, 2021 by jetstream

[Kon]

1 hour ago, jetstream said:

The Bortle scale really confuses me- a Bortle 4/3 mentioned and another member mentions a 3/4? I just dont understand it- not a judgment to those that use it for sure.

To me the MW is the easiest guide- as its possible to have good zenith darkness near overlapping light domes, depending where one is on the curve of the domes.

Hahaha, sorry for the confusion. In the moment of writing, yes 3/4. Milky Way arch is visible from S to almost N (I have a few hills behind my house). Without moonlight ,  I can see several clusters naked eye, they appear as fuzzy blobs, in a recent report I stated that I could make nebulosity in the Eagle/Trifid area in my finder scope.  My E is a bit worst, thus the 4. I can make M33 when seeing is very good. In the winter M42 is visible naked eye, not sure if that’s measure of good seeing.

 

if I remember well, you have truly dark skies, the views naked eye must be out of this world.

[jetstream]

15 minutes ago, Kon said:

I can make M33 when seeing is very good

naked eye?

[Kon]

4 minutes ago, jetstream said:

naked eye?

With averted vision it is a smudge, but only on new moon and very good seeing.

[jetstream]

Just now, Kon said:

With averted vision it is a smudge, but only on new moon and very good seeing.

How many objects in that immediate near area "north" of Triangulum do you see naked eye?

[Kon]

9 minutes ago, jetstream said:

How many objects in that immediate near area "north" of Triangulum do you see naked eye?

M31, a couple of open clusters C28, M39 and  Persei, no details apart from looking as smudges (not sure that’s the best description).

[nephilim]

3 hours ago, jetstream said:

The Bortle scale really confuses me- a Bortle 4/3 mentioned and another member mentions a 3/4? I just dont understand it- not a judgment to those that use it for sure.

To me the MW is the easiest guide- as its possible to have good zenith darkness near overlapping light domes, depending where one is on the curve of the domes.

How does M33 show naked eye from your skies? It should be easy at Bortle 3

3

Rural sky

6.6–7.0

21.69–21.89

the zodiacal light is striking in spring and autumn, and color is still visible some light pollution evident at the horizon clouds are illuminated near the horizon, dark overhead nearer surroundings are vaguely visible the summer Milky Way still appears complex M15, M4, M5, and M22 are naked-eye objects M33 is easily visible with averted vision limiting magnitude with 12.5" reflector is 16

@jetstream I think your refering to me when I mentioned  my bortle  3-4 sky or rather how I wrote it. As far as I know there is no difference regarding which way round it's written (That I'm aware of anyway) that's just the way I write it. 

Thinking about it now though It would actually make more sense to say 4/3 as the scale goes down rather than up,.

As for how I get to deciding the sky quality where I live, most of the markers judging a sky to be 4-3 or 3-4 (🤷) apply to me & what I can see etc, I'm not sure my way of coming to that conclusion would be bang on precise though.

this is my garden which is of no use really as it's not dark but it's pretty much pitch black when that sun goes down.

 Steve

Edited August 21, 2021 by nephilim

[Epick Crom]

Hi Kon, nice report as usual! Glad to hear you got some observing done, have you had a chance to see the recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi yet? Clear skies mate

[Kon]

6 hours ago, Epick Crom said:

Hi Kon, nice report as usual! Glad to hear you got some observing done, have you had a chance to see the recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi yet? Clear skies mate

Thanks. I am afraid I have not had the chance to see the nova yet, but this week the skies seem clearer.