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Light polution any where in the UK


Darren B

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Excellent site! I've been looking for a decent U.K. light polution site and this one has told me exactly where the best viewing location is within my county. Better still, it's only 25-minutes drive down the road :)

Thanks,

Gary

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It would be great if more of us observers gave our Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude to www.mydarksky.com - this easily maps the LP and allows people to share dark sites, and if you have a SQL-L from unihedron you can get really accurate. I've put some results up for the Aberdeen area, more to follow.

Thanks for your support Trull. We (the MyDarkSky crew) would be interested to hear how you get on with the the SQM you've provided for society use. Do people use it? Do they fetch their readings back? That sort of thing.

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My area scored 4.26 or one half star :)

I was out in London one night, taking a walk along the Thames near the Houses of Parliament and it was a clear night. You could barely make out the Plough!

London scores 3.23 on the map.

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Thanks for your support Trull. We (the MyDarkSky crew) would be interested to hear how you get on with the the SQM you've provided for society use. Do people use it? Do they fetch their readings back? That sort of thing.

Delighted to promote My Dark Sky as the easy to use, quick, and efficient way to record light pollution in your back yard. Other members of Aberdeen Astronomical Society are queuing up to take measurements!

We are also encouraging people to get involved by taking Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude (NELM) observations - which is much easier to do than to say...

I challenge every person on this thread to get out there and record at least one NELM and pop it into My Dark Sky. Just step outside your house one clear night and then use your postcode to record the rough location and get your mags in!

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  • 3 weeks later...

-7 where I live, and -6 for the nearest dark sky site I know of. We've tried driving around looking for places before, and although it's not like we can't find anywhere out in the sticks, the problem is finding a place we can park and set up (without an irate farmer chasing us off his lands). First place we tried was Trough of Bowland (near Jubilee Tower...we were kind of clutching at straws then). It wasn't too bad, but the wind was rather strong that night, so we didn't stay long.

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  • 3 weeks later...
How about a Google Earth tool which overlays a dark sky reference onto the Google Earth UK map - it's fully zoomable:

http://avex.org.free.fr/cartes-pl/uk/uk.kmz

I've seen this link referred to at so many websites in my searches, but it just seems to be a picture of a new moon with a cloud through it (which isn't clickable). Am I missing something, or do I need to click somewhere else on the page? I have tried the links under the picture but I can't understand the language.

I can't see what all the fuss is about this site, doesn't seem to amount to anything.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Unfortunately where i am studying at uni there is not many places near which has not got any light pollution however back home there is some nice clear areas.

Thanks for posting, I will bookmark this page for future use.

Mcro

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Rental of an SQM tool would be a nice service if anyone has one and is able to manage this. If I could borrow one for a few nights, I could get readings from a few different public and private sites to compare.

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...first place we tried was Trough of Bowland (near Jubilee Tower...we were kind of clutching at straws then)...

Ruiyyanko: I went out on a mini road trip to Dunsop Bridge in the Trough of Bowland with a sky quality meter to get some readings last month and can confirm it's pretty damn dark, even beside the village street light (my reading's on the MyDarkSky map). I was a bit gutted actually - it's darker than my house and I'm on the edge of the Peak District with no artificial lights within a square mile!

Not sure if the car park at Dunsop there is open/empty at night time but if so it would be a very decent spot. Would have gone up to the Jubilee tower after that but I got lost!

There's a couple of open areas further up the road to Lancaster that you could probably park and set up a scope at. Hopefully I can get out there soon too.

RE: farmers - there's another thread on this but peoples' in tracking them down and arranging to use particular areas before going observing on their fields seem pretty positive (not universally, of course, but encouraging at least).

I'm guessing that farmers are very sensitive because they're mindful of poaching they don't particularly need the hassle of checking out who's creeping around at night. We get poachers round our way and it's quite unnerving to hear gun shots in the middle of a quiet observing session.

Happen we astronomers could make some contacts with local bobbies/farmers/gamekeepers and offer our vigilance in exchange for a small spot to observe from from time-to-time.

By the way, if anyone's part of an astro society around Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffs or Derbyshire I'd love to come and talk to your society about MyDarkSky. At the moment we're doing very well for readings around our home patch but we'd like to encourage readings from a much wider area. Send me a PM if you're interested.

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  • 2 months later...
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Yeah I am under a poor sky as well, NELM of about mag 3.5 :eek:

Does anyone know if there is LP map for the west coast of Ireland?

All the maps seem to cut off that side of the island...

I recall researching that area of Ireland sometime back. I cannot remember where I found this information, but feel pretty sure that the central western areas are pretty dayum dark...:)

Edit, here's a screen captured & enlarged pic...

Capture.png

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This is brilliant, I'm actaully quite pleased with the result for my home area and my dark sky site. My home site is 4.25 and my d/s site is 5.32.

I thought lp was bad in my local area, but it appears some of you have it really bad.

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Mine is rather bad in the back garden. I happen to live across from a school and they had possibly the brightest security lights ever put on a few weeks ago, and in the opposite direction I occasionally have to just stop if people turn their lights on upstairs.

I think I know of two places close to me further out of the suberbs, but it really is a shame I cant travel there every time I use my telescope either because of security (would rather two man it) and time.

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Mine is rather bad in the back garden. I happen to live across from a school and they had possibly the brightest security lights ever put on a few weeks ago, and in the opposite direction I occasionally have to just stop if people turn their lights on upstairs.

I think I know of two places close to me further out of the suberbs, but it really is a shame I cant travel there every time I use my telescope either because of security (would rather two man it) and time.

Where are you, Lightgazer?

There are some very nice groups around, especially if you're in the south/south east.

All the best,

Mike

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Where are you, Lightgazer?

There are some very nice groups around, especially if you're in the south/south east.

All the best,

Mike

In the West Midlands unfortunately, and the only true way out according to the website is to head west and never turn back :)

Since I posted that it feels as though we have some sort of secret storekeepers society here, because the school security light is no longer an issue. Turns out they are going ahead with work to knock that part of the school down so now there isn't any power to light the monstrosity, leaving me with a totally dark garden.

Only issue I have spotted is the glow of light pollution in the distance. This was clear when viewing Jupiter to the West tonight and then looking right up at Vega where it appeared perfect for a back garden. Might have to invest in a light pollution filter to improve things further.

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