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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1134
Loc: Austin, TX
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Re: Is orange Zone 5 bad???
06/06/09 04:44 AM
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Well, Sean, if you thought a blue zone was great, you need to see a black zone. It's not nearly as big a jump in appearance as from yellow to blue, but it's significant.
The Milky Way is not an abundance of faint naked-eye stars, though faint naked-eye stars do make up a portion of its glow. No, most of the glow is stars fainter than magnitude 7. You really need to see the Milky Way from a dark site. Here's a little tip: next TRANSPARENT new moon, go out to a dark site (when I say "dark", I mean at least a blue zone) and wait for Saggitarius to rise up to a significant altitude, and then come back and report your findings  If you've never seen the summer milky way before in all it's glory, don't bother taking a telescope, you won't need it. Maybe bring a pair of bionoculars. When I was out in Fort Davis from May 14 to June 1 this year, I had to fight the urge to just sit back and stare at the incredible Milky Way. Keep in mind that I'm used to dark skies and I had a 25" scope to tempt me away from naked-eye viewing too.
Really the problem with the summer Milky Way is that weather typically only cooperates and allows you to look at it early in the mornings of April, May, and early June, and then, early in the evenings on late September or October nights, after Sagittarius is already well past meridian 
Personally, the way I see it, if you can't see the Gegenschein (when the Gegenschein is not superimposed over the Milky Way), then the site's too light polluted, and you should try to go out to an even darker site at least 2-3 times a year. Personally, I'm surprised at the number of people that find orange zones or even yellow zones acceptable- I'm glad that so many people are able to enjoy astronomy under such conditions. To be honest though, we shouldn't have to settle for orange zones, considering the current age we live in when people are constantly talking about energy conservation, greenhouse gases, and energy independence. Someone needs to call up Mr. Obama and talk to him about light pollution
Edited by tatarjj (06/06/09 05:04 AM)
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