Observing: home or away?

[savcom]

On 03/11/2021 at 20:24, Richard136 said:

Just wondering how many of you observe away from the house / garden, e.g., to a dark lane nearby or other dark place.

My garden is relatively dark, but the nearby houses and trees mean the view of the sky is quite obstructed in certain directions.

How many of you venture off into the night to find a dark spot without obstructions?

What a great topic! 

I'm very new to Astronomy (I only bought my first real telescope in January) so I'm very much learning the ropes.  That said, having just retired, we moved to southern Wiltshire in 2019, a stone's throw from the New Forest and on the edge of Cranbourne Chase, so home is Bortle 4 with no near neighbours and a great view of the sky pretty much all round (there are some trees to the West).  Most of my observing therefore is from home, with a couple of forays into the lanes nearby to improve views in a particular direction.  My only troubles at home are light pollution from nearby urban areas and the local football club, whose flood lights do just that: flood light everywhere.  Hopefully their application to improve their lighting will mean more control of their lights and I can really enjoy the skies.  Plans are under way for an obsi in the near future as my interest and experience increases, although I'm also working on what I need as a portable set-up. 

My biggest issue is learning my way around the skies at the moment - although this should become easier in time.  I have joined my local Astronomy group and they are very helpful, with a couple of Group observation sessions while the restrictions are eased.  We've set up an informal messaging system between us that we can all use to track how and where we are observing, so impromptu get-togethers at remote sites can be arranged between us at short notice.

Edited November 7, 2021 by savcom

[Stardaze]

This is an interesting subject as I've often wondered what lengths folk go to. I'm desperate to take my dob for a ride out but I'm still suffering a long term injury which means I shouldn't really be lifting it. Whatever happens, I'll be doing it regardless in the spring for galaxy season! I have used binoculars at dark sites but these last 2 full seasons have been from the relative comfort from my bottle 5 garden. I have been considering some short camping trips but it's a gamble booking the time off and potentially the weather not playing ball. SWMBO isn't into slumming it on the floor so not really something I'd fit around a family camping trip. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

4 hours ago, Stardaze said:

This is an interesting subject as I've often wondered what lengths folk go to. I'm desperate to take my dob for a ride out but I'm still suffering a long term injury which means I shouldn't really be lifting it. Whatever happens, I'll be doing it regardless in the spring for galaxy season! I have used binoculars at dark sites but these last 2 full seasons have been from the relative comfort from my bottle 5 garden. I have been considering some short camping trips but it's a gamble booking the time off and potentially the weather not playing ball. SWMBO isn't into slumming it on the floor so not really something I'd fit around a family camping trip. 

Swmbo and I don't slum it. A 5 person tent for two, a thick airbed, pillows from home and a crate of beer. We're both in our early fifties and not the fittest of specimens.  😀

Camps are booked around new moons with a village containing a gastro pub within walking distance. Lounge, walk, explore, eat, drink and be merry.  If it's clear, enjoy the sky. If it's cloudy continue the merriment.

It is possible to enjoy the best of both worlds with some compromise. 👍

[Stardaze]

7 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Swmbo and I don't slum it. A 5 person tent for two, a thick airbed, pillows from home and a crate of beer. We're both in our early fifties and not the fittest of specimens.  😀

Camps are booked around new moons with a village containing a gastro pub within walking distance. Lounge, walk, explore, eat, drink and be merry.  If it's clear, enjoy the sky. If it's cloudy continue the merriment.

It is possible to enjoy the best of both worlds with some compromise. 👍

And that doesn’t sound bad at all 😁 I’m going to do it next year. I used to fish an awful lot and so the camping bit I’m good for. 

 

[estwing]

Always travel to observe...deep sky hunting requires the darkest of skies. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

8 hours ago, Stardaze said:

And that doesn’t sound bad at all 😁 I’m going to do it next year. I used to fish an awful lot and so the camping bit I’m good for. 

 

I started camping again after a not bothering for about fifteen years, since my army reservist service. In fact it was purchasing a telescope and joining SGL that got me back into enjoying the outdoors. That first weekend in the Peak District with some of the chaps from here was a nightmarishly cold affair but lessons were re-learned!

As described earlier I think my better half has got into it now. Putting the tent up still involves quite a bit of, "stop shouting Peter" and me, "I'm not shouting, just giving instructions!". 🙄😁

As long as we have somewhere to visit, preferably with a market and even a better a castle (she likes castles...), with a decent food serving pub to walk to (why is the walk back always up hill? 🙄), she is happy and I get amazing skies like the weekend in the Yorkshire Dales during September. A very apparent Milky Way and several DSOs ticked off with the 10x50s.

Fresh air, good exercise, no stress and most of all blinkin' cheap weekends away. 👍

If tents really are not going to work, most sites now have some sort of glamping set up for a bit more ££.

Go for it. 😀

[Nyctimene]

Blessed with SQM-L 21+ (= Bortle 4) skies, I'm almost always observing from home. My preferred observing time is during the early morning hours, after some hours of sleep; most of the lights are out, I'm optimally dark adapted, and the acclimated dob is out in a few minutes.

Found these hints years ago in CloudyNights; have a look:

https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/observatories/refining-you-home-observing-site-r1631

Stephan

[skybadger]

Reading this makes me feel we need an astronomers dark sky cam network so peeps can see what the sky is like at their chosen target location . Does promise it  will be the same when you get there though. I do find that the met office forecast is good enough for that though.

[estwing]

21 minutes ago, skybadger said:

Reading this makes me feel we need an astronomers dark sky cam network so peeps can see what the sky is like at their chosen target location . Does promise it  will be the same when you get there though. I do find that the met office forecast is good enough for that though.

Just go anyway..the amount of weekends lost to cloud are countless but if you don't go you'll never know 

[westmarch]

I almost always travel to a dark sky site 20mins away.  There is just too much light pollution, heat emitting roofs and other obstructions where I live to see any worthwhile DSOs.

I can check a weather forecast, pack my kit into my car and be set up within 15mins of arriving. 

John

[jjohnson3803]

I live in heavy light pollution, so moving my scopes a small distance makes no difference.  My club does have two dark(er) sites, but the nearest is a 45-minute drive, so I don't go out there very often - too many things have to align to make the trip practical.

 

[John]

95% of my observing is done from my garden. The skies here are quite good, if you avoid targets low down to the north east (where Bristol lights up the sky) and the north (the Newport glow). I have to move the scope around, or be patient, to deal with the surrounding trees and house roof lines but overall there are significant advantages (and a few comforts !) to observing very close to home.

When I do observe somewhere else it is my astro society observatory site which is a few miles from where I live. It is not really darker there but the site does have a nice low, uncluttered southern horizon which helps with low targets. There is also an 18 inch scope at the observatory that I can use now, which is fun

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by John

[Gonariu]

Here in Orotelli (central Sardinia) I observe from my terrace where I have moderate light pollution living on the far outskirts of the town (less than 2000 inhabitants), I intuitively believe that the sky is Bortle 4 or, badly, 5. A a year and a half ago I bought used a small achromatic 80/400 that I love (the Konus Vista - 80, now out of production) that I mount on a photographic tripod, the classic travel setup. For some time I have been thinking of going about 5 km from the village in the countryside to a place that is certainly very dark but I hesitate. The reason is that here is inhabited by "bored" people who if they realize that I go out to go who knows where (according to them), they would make a joke on me in the dark more complete and alone moreover that I would remember for a long time (in the best case ) ... .... But someday I have to risk! When I go down to my mother in Cagliari, I only have slices of sky from the balcony, you don't see much and there is more light pollution than that. The only advantage of Cagliari is that the climate is warmer than that of Orotelli, 5 degrees more (to give you an idea in Cagliari it snows every 30 years, in Orotelli a sprinkle of snow almost every year ago, I think that in winter it is a little warmer than London).

[Boki Aristarh]

I live in 200.000 people town so if I want to have some serious observing's I must go somewhere.

For most of our observing and photographing activities our society made permanent  observatory 20 miles from city.

If we need some extreme deep sky observations there are few very good places in Serbia (advantage in living in country not so industry developed) 😃  

[Xilman]

For me it is invariably at home, but I have two homes.

In La Palma essentially all observing is instrumental: photometry  of variables stars, asteroids and exoplanetary transits.  There is a smattering of astrometry  and tracking down of extragalactic globular clusters. This work is done with a 0.4m Dilworth, SX 814 CCD camera and a selection of photometric filters.

In Cambridge I have a very poor sky --- restricted and polluted --- so little work gets done. The 0.25m Dobsonian is carted out onto the lawn where I will make visual estimates of VS and occasional sight seeing visits to doubles and the brighter Messier & NGC objects. This winter I really must see what can be done with a DSLR and/or video camera plugged into the Dob.

[Ags]

I don't drive and wouldn't feel safe observing alone in some deserted spot, so all my observing is in my Bortle 8 back garden. This gives me access to a patch to the south, and a bigger patch to the east. West from the zenith down is blocked, and north is lost to the Amsterdam light dome (the southern patch gets blasted by the infernal Dutch greenhouses, but it is still good for planets). My observing season on any object is very brief - here in November, I read with envy of people still observing targets in Lyra!

We are thinking quite seriously about moving to La Palma on a semi-permanent basis so I hope for better skies there. I hope I can persuade my employer. I haven't been in the office since early March last year, so I don't see why I can't labor for them under La Palma's skies instead! Even before the pandemic, my work was 100% about online meetings and giving remote assistance to clients around the globe, so really an office location is pretty irrelevant for me. I expect however there will be a housing shortage on La Palma for a while given the recent volcanic disaster.

[Marvin Jenkins]

My garden is covered in heavy cloud and starting to rain. The weather people say this is at least for a week. The estuary birds Lapwings have come inland so for once the weather people are right.

I don’t think it is a question of home or away. You have to do what you need to do. We all know it is not just a cloudy week or two. It is the timing! I have had virtually no night skies clear unless they are on full moon.

Remove the weather and the phases of the moon we would all be smiling. Do you think the moon and our planet and our weather are linked somehow 😂

If you can improve your skies by travelling, then do so. What do you have to lose but a few cloudy nights.

Marv

[ollypenrice]

On 12/11/2021 at 18:50, Stardaze said:

This is an interesting subject as I've often wondered what lengths folk go to. I'm desperate to take my dob for a ride out but I'm still suffering a long term injury which means I shouldn't really be lifting it. Whatever happens, I'll be doing it regardless in the spring for galaxy season! I have used binoculars at dark sites but these last 2 full seasons have been from the relative comfort from my bottle 5 garden. I have been considering some short camping trips but it's a gamble booking the time off and potentially the weather not playing ball. SWMBO isn't into slumming it on the floor so not really something I'd fit around a family camping trip. 

The golden rule of camping is to remember that any fool can be uncomfortable.  Even on six week long cycle tours my camping was in comfort. Good mountain tent, the right clothes, Thermarest mat and seat-converter and (very important) a glass drinking vessel for the wine!

lly

[Highburymark]

I observe 95% of the time from home in north London. As bad as it gets for light pollution. Much of the sky blocked by tall buildings. I even have mobility issues thrown in after spinal injuries in a car accident 35 years ago. And yet, despite everything, I still get out regularly and enjoy solar, lunar, planetary and double stars. I do have night vision, but even without that, I’d still have more than enough to keep me interested. It does mean I have to take advantage of most clear nights and days, but I’m just as keen an observer as I’ve ever been.

[Marvin Jenkins]

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

The golden rule of camping is to remember that any fool can be uncomfortable.  Even on six week long cycle tours my camping was in comfort. Good mountain tent, the right clothes, Thermarest mat and seat-converter and (very important) a glass drinking vessel for the wine!

lly

I always assumed the glass drinking vessel was the bottle the wine came in🤣

[ollypenrice]

54 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I always assumed the glass drinking vessel was the bottle the wine came in🤣

Dear boy, it cuts the nose off the wine! Unthinkable!!

lly

[Marvin Jenkins]

The wine I drink melts the nose off your face so no need for a receptacle.

Joking aside I do like a Sauternes with a good blue vein cheese on special occasions. Thankfully no one I know likes white wine so I have it all to myself

Marv

Edited November 24, 2021 by Marvin Jenkins
Missing word ‘no’