First time under dark skies

[Buqibu]

And wow

Just...wow

In my 2 years of observing at home, I have been limited to inner city skies (bortle 7 on maps), and while I have seen amazing sights, I can now truly say I understand why they say "a dark sky is better than a big telescope".

Went to the rooftop of a building with my dad in a very small town, maps place it at bortle 4. I have been here many times before, but never with my telescope. Right off you can see many many more stars just with the naked eye. The summer triangle was shining bright, high in the sky. Pointed near Deneb, popped in a 20mm eyepiece in my f6.5, 4 inch achro refractor  and oh man...pitch black sky absolutely filled with jewels. Countless stars, truly mesmerizing. Utterly beautfiul. So i went drifting along, slewing around familiar areas.

M29 - neat, compact open cluster, nice shape, surrounded by background stars

M57 - easily visible, averted vision introduces that unmistakable ring

M56 - first time looking at this globular, pretty big, no core to speak of, very diffuse

Albireo - a speck of gold and one of diamond, beautiful contrast swimming in a sea of lights, easy to split even at very low magnification

M71 - first time for this glob as well - seemed to me bigger and slightly more diffuse than m56. Nicely sat between bright stars

M27 - I thought I had seen this nebula in the city, but oh man I hadn't seen a thing. In bortle 4 skies, the huge defined cloud of nebulosity jumped out at me. Averted vision showed the bow shape clearly

The Blinking Planetary - this one I'm not so sure of. I thought I saw faint nebulosity surrounding a relatively dim star, but wind was very strong at this point so I decided to leave it because the shakes made focusing a nightmare.

Just as I was getting up to call it a night, I look south. I see a kettle. A tea kettle.   SAGITTARIUS

The legendary constellation was pretty much invisible at home, but here it was clearly visible, though still low on the sky. Wind was picking up again so I picked the first thing that came to mind - M22, the famous globular.

While looking for it I stumbled upon M28 nearby.

M28 - faint against a bright background, still easily recognisable as a globular with averted vision. Not particularly bright

And then, a couple of field of views to the left and....

M22 - absolutely remarkable, huge, bright, and I am pretty sure I could resolve stars in it (a first for my 4 inch, it even struggles to resolve M13). The wow factor here is very much comparable to the description of M27 i did earlier.

At this point it was getting late and very windy, so we went downstairs.

 

A night I'll never forget. 

Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading and clear skies!

(p.s, dad was looking around with binoculars, he finds eyepieces annoying but hopefully he enjoyed tonight as much as I did 😁)

 

 

 

[Captain Scarlet]

Fantastic read. With lovely dark skies, for me it’s the naked eye view that blows me away the most. I’m almost grateful for the LP in cities for being something to let me compare it to.

Magnus

[Buqibu]

52 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Fantastic read. With lovely dark skies, for me it’s the naked eye view that blows me away the most. I’m almost grateful for the LP in cities for being something to let me compare it to.

Magnus

Thank you!

[Epick Crom]

I can feel your excitement mate! Same thing happened to me a few months back when I went to a bottle 1 location. It blew my mind that the sky can get pitch black! I'm glad you saw M22, it was the first globular that I resolved into stars back in 2020 when I bought my first telescope, a 10 inch dobsonian. Spectacular! Wishing you clear skies.

Joe

[Zermelo]

An engaging account of a great session, thanks for posting.

[russ]

That is a fantastic read and something i can relate to when we went on holiday to Wales in 2019. Getting away from city lights is a revelation. Most nights I can count the stars on two hands from my back garden. But from Wales I was lost in a sea of stars. Hoping our trip to the West Country in 10 days time will be equally good. 

[Kon]

Great read and some great targets. Worth revisiting if you can when astrodarkness returns, you will be blown away from the several summer faint fuzzies.

[tripleped]

Great post! It wasn’t that long ago I had my first dark sky experience so your glowing report really resonates with me. I was blown away just as you were under Bortle 4 skies.  Next goal is to get to even darker skies someday. 

[wookie1965]

Brilliant thank you.