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stevecoe
Reged: 04/24/04
Posts: 2148
Loc: Arizona, USA
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Re: What is the DARKEST SKY you have observed?
05/07/06 02:33 PM
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The Saguaro Astronomy Club has a spot near the little town of Happy Jack, Arizona. It is 120 miles from Phoenix and 35 miles from Flagstaff. We call it "5 Mile Meadow" because it is 5 miles off the pavement on a well maintained dirt road.
My observing buddy and I use a system of rating the night that does not include depending on star magnitudes because we go looking for diffuse objects and star magnitudes are not a good predictor of how good the night is when observing faint detail in nebulae or galaxies.
We have rated this observing spot 9 out of 10 for transparency two times and 10 out of 10 once. The Milky Way is bright and wide with plenty of detail in the Rift. There is a faint outer loop of the Milky Way that goes from Lyra into Libra, when I can see that feature, it is a great night.
I have no doubt that this location has a limiting magnitude in the 7's, and one time I might rate that so we will have that number. But, then I would have to stop observing deep sky goodies under those fabulous skies to try and nail down a number and I have not wanted to do that yet.
I hope for all of you that you will make a trip to Arizona some time and get a chance to go observe with us. We generally go up in June and Sept.
Clear Skies to us all;
Steve Coe
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150mm 6" f/8 Celestron Refractor on Sirius Mount
80mmED 3" f/7.5 Orion Refractor
Author "Deep Sky Observing" Springer-Verlag
Author "Nebulae and How to Observe Them" Springer
New Canon Xt astrocamera with Hutech modification
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