New house / back yard - first light :D

[vlaiv]

I know, I know - funny thing to have first light of, but I finally moved to a new house two weeks ago and this was first time I was out observing.

Its not due to weather - I simply could not find the time or was too exhausted from moving to get myself out. House is still not finished (terrace stairs, insulation, and obsy yet to be done) so I have bunch of building material scattered all over the yard. Some of it is for observatory , but in any case - not really safe environment to move at night in the dark.

Expectations were high. I did 99% of my astronomy (visual and imaging) from ~SQM18 - 18.5 skies in large(ish) city. Now I'm in countryside at 250m above sea level (city was 79m officially), according to lightpollutionmap.info - SQM20.84, so at least 2 magnitudes of improvement if not more.

It was not overly late session - I started setting up at 8pm (something I would never do in the city due to all the lights around - I'd usually wait past midnight to do any sort of observing) and by 9pm I figured that 8" dob is properly cooled so I can start session. I sat there in the dark for maybe 10-15 minutes before starting and my first impression was not good.

Sky is still not black - it is blue / gray. Maybe a bit more blue and bit less grey than in city. Also - that orange glow is not present, but it is far less dark than I expected. I have several light domes scattered over horizon, all the major cities near by provide one, but at 30° and up - it is much better.

Naked eye showed Milky Way, but it was far from distinct. Major contours could be recognized. Summer triangle / Cygnus was directly overhead and start of the Great Rift was clearly seen. M31 was alternating between direct / averted vision object. I was not lost in stars - I could still easily make out major constellations. Did not think of trying to determine NELM.

At eyepiece, things changed. I could easily find targets and see them - no problem. I did not pay great attention to each object - I was more jumping around trying to quickly asses what can be seen and how easily.

Objects that I saw:

M2, M15, M71 - all observed with 28mm ES68°. M2 and M15 were just smudges - I did not try higher magnifications to start to resolve stars. M71 had distinct shape.

Found NGC7331 without too much issues, still 28mm ES68° - very nice oval blob.

M27 - Football shaped, I observed it with 28mm and 16mm ES68.

Vega - now, I don't usually observe bright stars, but I really enjoyed seeing razor sharp diffraction spikes on such bright star. I only turned telescope there to check collimation. I've been transporting scope just week ago and I haven't checked collimation in quite a long time - all was good and sight was rather pleasing.

Double/Double - ES82° 11mm - not what we would call clean split - stars had a bit of "fuzz" due to seeing and they were "kissing".

Then I realized that Jupiter is very prominent in Southern sky - and I turned the scope on it. My first reaction was - "Why is this image so over exposed" . Jupiter was sooo bright that I really could not see any features on it at all - it was just sort of white/yellowish blob. After few moments when my night vision went away, I was presented with one of best Jupiter images to date. Seeing has been very good in these parts lately (so I've heard from other observers) and indeed - it was not perfect tonight, but there were moments of exceptional clarity. I quickly switched eyepiece to 5.5mm ES62° (am I ES fanboy? ), in part to further bring down brightness. I enjoyed the planet for several minutes. Saturn was behind a tree and I could not be bothered to move further down the yard in order to find better spot (there is still building material scattered and I did not want to risk it).

I decided to sit again in darkness to regain some of night vision. Pleiades started rising in the east. Saw few meteors.

M31/M32/M110 - all were easily seen, better than any single session from the city. First dust lane was direct vision feature, second was averted vision. NGC206 was seen as well (not the stars - only slight brightening in place where I expected it to be).

M33 - this was first time ever for me. Easily seen both in finder and in scope - featureless round blob, but definitively there - direct vision

M81/M82 - well, I really did not expect to see these. They were at only ~25° Alt in direction of major city and hence in one of those light domes. Clearly seen, oval and elongated shape - better than any time from the city.

By the end of the session I spend some time just cruising MW around Cassiopeia.  ES68 28mm has some AMD - not sure if I noticed that before.

I have mixed feeling about all of this.  I saw many objects with ease that I did not expect, yet I was somewhat underwhelmed by the looks of the sky at the start of the session.

[Voyager 3]

Nice first light . Enjoy your new equipment ( wait , what? ) 

[Stu]

Lovely report @vlaiv, really nice to hear what you’ve been up to. The move sounds great, and having recently completed a similar move to darker skies I can relate to what you are going through (tiredness, too much going on to observe etc).

My skies are supposedly 20.84 too, but I’ve measured them between 20.35 and 20.5 I think so far. Like you, there is still LP around though more localised, no major light domes in my view. The MW is visible but not really well defined. The wonderful thing is though that despite the skies not being stunning, I can actually SEE objects!! Even in binoculars plenty of DSOs are visible, so I’m just enjoying the fact that I can have rewarding sessions from home, and I hope you reach that conclusion too.

Looking forward to more reports on how you are enjoying your new skies 👍

[JeremyS]

Congratulations @vlaiv 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[jetstream]

Excellent report Vlaiv!

On 03/10/2021 at 16:22, vlaiv said:

I finally moved to a new house two weeks ago and this was first time I was out observing.

Congratulations on the move, you will enjoy your new place, it sounds great and with a nice elevation increase.

On 03/10/2021 at 16:22, vlaiv said:

Naked eye showed Milky Way, but it was far from distinct. Major contours could be recognized. Summer triangle / Cygnus was directly overhead and start of the Great Rift was clearly seen.

 Sorry I'm late to the thread, missed it somehow but I have questions

During my SQM days I noticed that when observing around light domes transparency was a huge factor. Any little bit of dust in the air, light cloud etc will reflect the light and scatter it around - so its a double whammy- viewing reduce from the trans itself but also the scattering, reflecting effect on the surrounding light domes.

so, how was the transparency this night?

On 03/10/2021 at 16:22, vlaiv said:

M33 - this was first time ever for me. Easily seen both in finder and in scope - featureless round blob, but definitively there - direct vision

Congrats for this- M33 is super sensitive to things and can disappear pretty easily- it is a good test of skies.

 

On 03/10/2021 at 16:22, vlaiv said:

First dust lane was direct vision feature, second was averted vision

Another vg sign, many do not see lanes at all, and the second one eludes many many people!

Hmm, you sound like a vg observer- maybe we'll get you switched over from imaging to plain old visual?

Edited October 15, 2021 by jetstream

[Carbon Brush]

That is an impressive first night.

Just think. Unless that happened to be the best seeing of the year, things can only get better.

Looking forward to hearing how things progress.

David.

[Captain Scarlet]

Welcome to the recently-moved-to-the-dark-side club! Not sure how I missed your post 2 weeks ago either.

Can we assume you’re well on the way now to being cured of AP 🤪?

Cheers Magnus

[jetstream]

1 minute ago, Captain Magenta said:

Not sure how I missed your post 2 weeks ago either.

Yes, me neither!

My only excuse is lots of fishing instead of astronomy lol!

[vlaiv]

2 hours ago, jetstream said:

Congratulations on the move, you will enjoy your new place, it sounds great and with a nice elevation increase.

Thank you!

2 hours ago, jetstream said:

 Sorry I'm late to the thread, missed it somehow but I have questions

During my SQM days I noticed that when observing around light domes transparency was a huge factor. Any little bit of dust in the air, light cloud etc will reflect the light and scatter it around - so its a double whammy- viewing reduce from the trans itself but also the scattering, reflecting effect on the surrounding light domes.

so, how was the transparency this night?

Not entirely sure. As far as I recall it - local transparency was excellent. Not many sources of pollution around here (like highways or power plants / people burning wood for heat) and its often windy lately. That, plus higher elevation means that local transparency was excellent (compared to what I'm used to back in town - with all the pollution and large river near by - which often leads to misty / hazy conditions).

As far as high altitude transparency is concerned - I remember checking out AOD on Copernicus and I remember that forecast for area on given night was between 0.1 and 0.16 mark (so second best out of values reported by this service, first being <0.1).

3 hours ago, jetstream said:

Hmm, you sound like a vg observer- maybe we'll get you switched over from imaging to plain old visual?

 

29 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

Can we assume you’re well on the way now to being cured of AP 🤪?

It's unlikely that I'll give up AP, as I enjoy doing both. Ideal situation would be - finished obsy with imaging gear ticking away while I observe from a lawn next to it

 

[JamesF]

I missed this thread initially and having found it now I had to go to Google Earth to find out exactly where Novi Sad is even if you don't live there any more.  On my screen, my nearest large town (about 15km away) takes up perhaps ⅛th of the area covered by Novi Sad!  (I am embarrassingly ignorant of the geography of what I would describe as "Eastern Europe", I have to admit.)

I've always found your posts to be interesting and thought-provoking vlaiv, so with your new-found dark skies I hope there will be many more.

James

[vlaiv]

10 hours ago, JamesF said:

I missed this thread initially and having found it now I had to go to Google Earth to find out exactly where Novi Sad is even if you don't live there any more.  On my screen, my nearest large town (about 15km away) takes up perhaps ⅛th of the area covered by Novi Sad!  (I am embarrassingly ignorant of the geography of what I would describe as "Eastern Europe", I have to admit.)

I've always found your posts to be interesting and thought-provoking vlaiv, so with your new-found dark skies I hope there will be many more.

James

Thank you.

I'm still fairly close to Novi Sad - at 25Km distance - that is practically a suburb. Luckily, there is "tall" mountain (to be honest - barely a mountain with 537m above sea floor ) - but I guess high enough to shield me from the most of LP coming from that direction.

[rnobleeddy]

Sounds brilliant!

The important question is how much weight did the better astro conditions play in choosing to move house?!

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, rnobleeddy said:

Sounds brilliant!

The important question is how much weight did the better astro conditions play in choosing to move house?!

To be honest - quite a bit.

Both wife and I agreed that we wanted slower pace of life and nature as priorities. Our decision was also based on climate change prospects in following decades (moving to higher ground because of increased temperatures and better potential for off grid if need be).

In the end - dark sky was put forward as sort of requirement on my part and was accepted. We first looked to buy a house, but after seeing what was on offer - we ended up buying land (I instantly knew when I saw horizon on that location ) and building our new house.

[wookie1965]

Absolutely brilliant report a pleasure to read. 

[PeterW]

Sounds great

 

Peter

[Stu]

20 hours ago, vlaiv said:

To be honest - quite a bit.

Both wife and I agreed that we wanted slower pace of life and nature as priorities. Our decision was also based on climate change prospects in following decades (moving to higher ground because of increased temperatures and better potential for off grid if need be).

In the end - dark sky was put forward as sort of requirement on my part and was accepted. We first looked to buy a house, but after seeing what was on offer - we ended up buying land (I instantly knew when I saw horizon on that location ) and building our new house.

Fantastic stuff! Really pleased for you. Not the easiest approach to build your own house but well worth it I’m sure!

Our decision to move was based on some similar themes, more relaxed life, more space, close to countryside, the sea and dark skies. All good! 👍