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Dark skies in Wales


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This week I stayed at the Dolgoch Hostel in Wales. The skies are Bortle 2, which is the darkest sky I have ever seen. I took my Orion Optics UK 12 inch Dobsonian. I  saw the Western Veil Nebula and the Eastern Veil Nebula for the first time. They were visible without a filter, but very faint. With an 0111 filter they were very obvious and the Western Veil especially was impressive. I also looked at M51, M97, M101, M57  and the Blue Snowball Nebula. Also the Andromeda Galaxy. Planetary nebula did not seem that much better than my usual dark site, which is Bortle 4, maybe because they are relatively bright? The Milky Way was amazing.

The hostel is in a valley and there are some trees, but there was a pretty good view all around the sky. The hostel has no electricity so there ae no lights to lessen the view of the night sky. There is a viewng spot/parking place around 10 minutes drive from the hostel which is probably even better, as it is higher up, so more could be seen lower down. But my wife would not let me drive on the mountain road at night. although I am sure it would have been fine.

The road to the hostel is a bit scary, it is a hIgh mountain road, often without A fence, it goes over a steep hill called the devil's staircase, but my car mamaged the road fine, if you go slowly it is OK.

I would recommend the hostel to anyone who wants to experience a really dark sky. I would like to go back there or somewhere in the same area when more galaxies are visible, for example in May.

 

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