5 ms·
The light pollution map isn't very good and it doesn't give the full picture. We do astroimaging in the middle of a very bright area, but we are on a hill. A li
by cgriswald 12y ago
The light pollution map isn't very good and it doesn't give the full picture. We do astroimaging in the middle of a very bright area, but we are on a hill. A little elevation goes a long way. It also helps that our scopes are in an enclosure which blocks lights from the sides. We can occassionally see the Milky Way on clearer nights.
At my new house on a hill, you can see a huge difference being on the deck versus being down (about 50 feet) in the back yard.
People who are really interested in doing some viewing should check out local astronomy organizations. They will host star parties and will know the best places locally to do observations.
- scrumper 12y ago50' is 10 floors - quite a deck you have :) Is it better because you're above streetlights? Agreed re: screening: biggest help for me is shutting off house lights and getting to a part of the garden that's shaded from neighbors.
- oh_sigh 12y ago5 feet per floor?
- scrumper 12y agoYesterday I added 3 to 9 and got 11. Not my week. 5 floors. Not even going to edit it, as punishment to myself.
- cgriswald 12y agoThe only street light within half a mile is about 1300 feet away and about 150 feet down even from the backyard. It may have more to do with the neighbors than anything else - on the deck I am next to or above all neighbors with my (darkened) house blocking light from the neighbors up the hill. The closest neighbors have few windows on the side of the house facing me. It is quite a deck, but the backyard is a couple flights of stairs down from the backdoor which itself is on the bottom floor of the house.
- lotharbot 12y agoyeah, apparently my favorite star-watching location (on the roof of my grandparents' cabin in the shadow of Thorodin mountain, near Nederland, CO) is yellow in this map. But at 9200 feet and with mountains and trees blocking direct light from all directions, the sky is just as clear as my other favorite star-watching place (Beecher Island battleground, in one of those completely unshaded regions on the Colorado-Kansas border.)
- marcus_holmes 12y agoI'm always fascinated by the light show in the Western Australian desert... apparently it's bushfires (http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/wa-bushfires-create-nasa-light-show-20121209-2b3d1.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/wa-bushfires-creat...) but there's no bush out there to burn, it's all flat sandy desert. There's an unusually high reporting of UFOs out there too, so maybe that's it ;)