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I was looking at light pollution maps just the other day, trying to find places to do astro-photography, and was blown away by how much light pollution there is
by rabuse 7y ago
I was looking at light pollution maps just the other day, trying to find places to do astro-photography, and was blown away by how much light pollution there is. Really sucks, because I'd have to drive about 90 minutes out to get into a dark zone.
- donkeyd 7y agoOnly 90 minutes? For me it's at least 3 hours to get to Class 4 on the Bortle scale. Class 2 is probably more than 5 hours. Only alternative is the sea. I'm planning to take a trip to a Class 1 this summer, it'll be hard to find a place that dark that is reasonably reachable though.
- AdamJacobMuller 7y agoNYC? About the same for me.
- krick 7y agoExactly, this almost sounds like humblebragging (I know it's not, but still...) I mean, in the whole EU you literally couldn't find a place with Class 1 at all, unless going far-far North into Finland national parks or Norwegian mountains. Makes you hate civilization.
- bjelkeman-again 7y agoAccording to Darksitefinder northern Sweden seems better. There are som great places to go up there in the winter that is well worth trying.
- Moru 7y agoYes, every time we go visit my mother we stop on the road and look up, it's beautiful. No villages for 15 km and only darkness around. And a car passing by with ten headlights blinding you every now and then...
- ourlordcaffeine 7y agoThe UK has class 2 in the south west and wales, class 1 in Scotland.
- krick 7y agoUK isn't really EU anymore.
- caymanjim 7y agoGo to an island and hope the power goes out. I was on Cayman Brac (a tiny Caribbean island) during a power outage, and even though there was a full moon, the view was amazing. Then there was a lunar eclipse that I hadn't even known about in advance. Most amazing sky I've ever seen.
- dylan604 7y agoIslands tend to be pretty close to water/ocean. The moisture in the air has always played havoc with my attempts at imaging from these locations. My bucket list destination is Atacama.
- loeg 7y agoDarksitefinder scores a good portion of the remote North Cascades in Washington a 2 on a 1-15 point scale, which is ~4.5 hours from Seattle during winter (with highway 20 closed).
- reaperducer 7y agoDark skies are so rare these days that remote towns in Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada promote themselves to stargazers. Example: https://www.tonopahnevada.com/stargazing/ https://www.tonopahnevada.com/stargazing/ "In most cities you can see between 25-50 stars, in Tonopah you can see 7,000!"
- thedance 7y agoThe maps themselves are counterproductive because they attract visitors, who are all idiots. There's a new house some guy built in Mono County in what was a Bortle class 2 area and the whole house is surrounded by up-pointing lights because I dunno, it looks better that way on the AirBnB listing I guess?
- ComputerGuru 7y agoLucky you. I had to drive six hours to watch the Perseids. The nearest dark site to Chicago is Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri.