64 replies to this topic

[George N]

Didn't half the eastern North American grid go down in the late 60s or early 70s?  Attributed by some to UFO activity.  So where are the UFOs when you need them?  

I think it was both 60's and 70's. 'Sky & Tel' published photos of the Milky Way over the NYC skyline! 

 

For the one in the 60's I was taking a rare college night class at RPI, high on the hill overlooking Troy and Cohoes NY. Somebody says "***What's**** going on?" Looking out the windows we saw large sections of the cities shutting down, moving closer over say 30 seconds - then our classroom lights went out.

 

Professor: "OK, for a one grade improvement - who can say who the publisher of our textbook is, and were they are located?"

 

That one lasted several cold nights and days!

Edited by George N, 03 May 2025 - 09:47 AM.

[daveb2022]

I've been involved in several smaller power outages where a city of say 50,000 or a large area goes down, and for a brief moment in time, it's fascinating. But today, besides traffic, there are a lot of backup lighting that kicks in after an outage which somewhat spoils the fun. Still not my idea of finding dark skies.

[edwincjones]

At 79 I accept  LP as something to tolerate,

view naked eye, binoculars, 

solar, lunar, comets (when possible)

overall star patterns

positive memory of darker nights

 

edj

[HellsKitchen]

Step outside my back door at 1am. 

[Starhunter249]

I live in a bortle 4 small town and have a lot of ground level light pollution from a garbage collection sanitation building across my field. The garbage company has their main office, park their gabage trucks, and do their maintenance at this location. When I first moved into my house, it was bortle 3 with near super dark environment in my backyard. The large lighting system at the garbage depot just makes viewing any DSO less enjoyable. So what I do now during the week of the new moon, I drive out about 15 minutes to the edge of a solar farm. I park outside the fence and set up scope there. No ground lighting and bortle 3. I used to observe in a cemetery but one night a bunch of ATVers came driving through and sorta killed that option for me. If it's on the the weekend, I will get more adventurous and drive to Missouri to Bortle 2 skies. Plus free camping. Last weekend I camped up at Green River Conservation Area near Dixon Illinois. Reason was not for dark skies, but clear skies. Everything was clouded out south of Peoria Illinois.

Edited by Starhunter249, 04 May 2025 - 10:52 AM.

[Refractor6]

Step outside my back door at 1am. 

 Same here... soon as it gets dark scope ready in courtyard to observe. Skies weren't like this when I lived in Metro Vancouver {no kidding}.

[msinc]

Drive to my cabin in the middle of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia......just have to be vigilant of the bears. 

[weis14]

I'm lucky enough to have two dark sites in Michigan's northern lower peninsula that I can go to.  One of them is my mother's house in Arenac County, which is on 160 acres of wooded property with several large clearings and usually has a SQM-L reading of 21.1-21.4 mag/arcsec.  It is easy to access year round and I can typically count on my mom to come out and chat for an hour or two in the early evening unless it is too cold.  The other site is my father-in-law's small fishing cabin east of Grayling.  It is heavily wooded and in a slight valley, so observing there can be a challenge between fighting trees and fog.  I don't have a good SQM reading for it, but the Lorenz atlas has it at 21.81 mag/arcsec and I believe it on a clear, crisp night with no fog.

 

As for the OP, when I lived in Alexandria, VA, I was a member of NOVAC and would frequent some of their dark sites.  My favorite was Turner Mountain, though it was probably Bortle 5 when I was last there in 2017 and is probably much worse now.  Sky Meadows or Shenandoah National Park are probably better choices these days.  Spruce Knob is also excellent, but that is a bit of a drive.

[Jon Isaacs]

Some words of advice from a person who drives 100-200 miles to get to reasonably dark skies:

1) you don't want clear horizons.  Clear horizons allow you to see and be bothered by light domes from cities.

You obviously don't want the trees to block up to 45° or higher in any direction, but 20° is fine.

2) You want a harder surface to set up on--not sand or loose dirt.  Hardpack, asphalt, gravel with multiple tarrings.

3) you want to be well off a road so that even if headlights come by it's only for a few seconds, and you want any adjacent road to be LIGHTLY trafficked.

4) Look for a Lorenz rating of 21.1-21.2 or preferably darker.  The reason is that all sites are about 0.3 magnitudes brighter than that due to solar maximum and the growth of LED lighting in cities.

5) make sure there are no tall poles with lights within at least 3-4 miles from your site, and be sure you could block it off if there is.

6) make sure you can set up near your car to make it easy to unload and reload.

7) if the drive is 90 minutes or less, it can be an easy overnight visit.  If longer than 90 minutes, think about staying 2 nights.

8) DON'T drive home the same night.  Being tired can mean your reaction time is slowed and you could fall asleep at the wheel.

Stay the night and drive home in the light.  If you can't sleep in your car, think about a cot or ground pad, and sleeping bag of course.

 

Spruce Knob WV sounds like a great site.

 

That's a pretty good description of our high desert hideaway.  Add a good sized garage for scope storage, a 1000 sq.ft. house, a neighbor who is the salt of the earth...  To the south is Mexico and an open horizon. To the west is the garage, the north and east trees... The Lorenz rating is about 21.3 mpsas.  I try to spend 10 to 14 days a month out there, I am heading out this afternoon.  I have a second set of clothes out there..

 

 

 

For trips to darker skies, we have our older motorhome.  It's great when we get there but driving there is literally like throwing a dollar bill out the window every 2 miles.. 

 

 

Jon

Edited by Jon Isaacs, 21 May 2025 - 09:47 AM.

[luxo II]

1. I use the Gasoline Filter.

 

2. Armed with the knowledge gained from sorties to identify suitable areas, scour maps of the dark sky areas within 4h drive to find candidate locations which might be agreeable to occasional club nights such as small hamlets (under 10 dwellings) that have either a sporting field, community show ground or community hall (potential kitchen and sleeping facilities), or 

 

3. Letterbox drop to landowners in such locations to see if one might host an event for a reasonable deal.

 

We have succeeded with both of the latter approaches, and I should add it is essential to visit candidate sites at night to see what the conditions really are like before sealing a deal. We did find promising candidates that looked good in daylight, but turned out to be hopeless at night for various reasons. Some country folk are surprisingly welcoming of this type of community outreach event. 

Edited by luxo II, 21 May 2025 - 09:53 PM.

[vsteblina]

I just go to my winter place in Arizona (21.4) or up to my second home 10 miles away (21.7).  I do have an observatory at my primary home but it is only 20.4.

 

My darkest skies are generally during my fishing and hunting trips.  Those skies are usually 21.7 to 21.9. 

 

It is hard to stay up all night after fishing or hunting all day.  I did buy a AM5 mount and this year I am going to try imaging all night long while I sleep on my fishing and hunting trips.

[Domdron]

I also like to go camping. I like the possibility to sleep just right next to my equipment, as I now often run an imaging setup in parallel to observing.

 

Another thing that doesn't really help all too much with darker skies, but a little bit: here in Kenya, it's common to build water towers for houses, to keep possible leackage from water tanks out of the house. We have one, too, and just added an extension on the top floor, next to the tank, to make enough space for observing/shooting from there, and I might build a small observatory shack around it:

 

View from above while construction was going on (need to shoot another pic now that it's finished!).

 

View of finished tower extension from below.

 

The main motivation for this was to create a space where I can permanently and securely leave the mounts/scopes set up and ready to go, but also to escape the growing vegetation/trees around our garden. But a welcome side-effect is that it puts me above part of the local light pollution from my immediate neighbours, many of which have various insecurity lights constantly on as soon as it gets dark: they're fully automatic China-made "solar lights", which have a built-in battery and can't even be turned off; these things should be outlawed! At least I got them to point the lights downward instead of outward, and with the height provided by the tower, I can actually get above part of their light.

 

I don't have a proper SQM will take some comparative measurements using the Dark Sky Meter app once I get a reasonably clear night.

 

Then again, building a tower if you don't already happen to have one surely isn't the greatest bang-for-buck solution for getting better skies...

[jeffholste]

Dark Sky RV Park Review - City of Rocks RV

$35 / night (2025-06)

I like comfort.  I drive my Entegra Anthem (45ft Diesel Pusher towing my Jeep).   I also live in Utah and like a good dark sky (my house in Stansbury Park is Bortel / Class 4).   I want to be able to stay a few nights someplace just in case I get a cloudy night.

 

Here is how I rate an RV Park.
1 point – Big Rig Access
1 point – Full Hook ups / Sewer / 50 Amp / Water (Half point for partial hookups / dump station)
1 point – Bortel 1 (Class 1) Dark Sky (half point for Class 2)
1 point – Horizon / View / Obstructions
1 point –Other pluses

 

City of Rocks RV is just before the City of Rocks National Reserve (An International Dark Sky Site).  It’s 3 hrs from Salt Lake City / 3 hrs from Boise.  45 minutes off paved State Road off I-84. Getting there wasn’t bad / State Highway 77 is reasonable for big rig towing.  Last little bit of road to the park is oiled / dirt road (no noticeable dust from Road), but bumpy.  P.S. DOUBLE CHECK Google Maps, it doesn’t limit you to paved roads.  There are many dirt roads, double check (My Garmin avoids dirt).

The park owners are aware of being a dark sky site and DO keep the lights off, some minor safety led lights.  Sites are laid out kinda strange, two back-to-back pull thrus (??).   Not too far off road, reasonable in and out.  NO facilities, pit toilets (3) only.  The public dump station is down the road, you will pass it on the way in. 

 

Small trees, I was able to shoot pictures around them.   Those trees might get bigger, but you have a lot of sky (especially to the south) and I found good viewing from just about any site.   Mountains to the west, about 15-20 degrees of obstruction.  I had a bad afternoon, winds 30 gusting to 50, CRAP-TON of dust / clouds (dropped from 88°F to 35°F at night).   Finally cleared up about midnight, I only took a few shots with my cellphone BUT it was pretty dark, only a few lights around.   Half a mile from Almo (small town), no noticeable issues from it.

 

This is not a paid review, just sharing where I stayed this weekend.  I would give this place 3.5 stars.

(note: 1st post, not sure if this link is correct)

Album: CityOfRocks

5 images

0 comments

Full sized images. https://drive.google...usp=drive_link 

 

p.s: ATT = 5G / Verizon = NO GOOD

Edited by jeffholste, 23 June 2025 - 12:18 PM.

[gwlee]

It’s fairly dark at my rural mountain homesite at

4,300 feet. Most of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is public land.

 

It’s very dark within an hours drive East of here (see photo), but buried under deep snow until Summer. The top photo shows the approach to Sonora Pass (9,600+ feet). The peaks in the background are well over 10,000 feet. The bottom photo shows the Pacific Crest Trail where it crosses Sonora Pass. 

 

The link is a light pollution map centered on a spot within walking distance from my home. 

 

https://www.cleardar....html?Mn=optics

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Edited by gwlee, 25 June 2025 - 07:48 AM.

[Astro-Master]

My favorite dark site is 360 miles away and takes 8 hours get there in my Toyota motorhome, but it's worth the trouble to stay for a week or two at 8,500 feet under some of the best transparent skies with good seeing.

 

Back in 2016 and 2018 I was getting readings of 21.84 to 21.88 with my SQM, in 2023 the sky had brighten to 21.77 with the Sun getting closer to its maximum cycle.

 

I'll never forget the magical night in August of 2016 with the SQM at 21.84 with excellent transparency and seeing.  Galaxies that usually don't show spiral detail with averted vision were showing spiral arms with direct vision in my 18" Dob, it was like I added 5 or 6" of aperture. 

 

Closer to home in the high desert about 75 miles to the east I would get readings of 21.4 to 21.5 only 5 years ago but now only 21.1 to 21.3 with sky glows to the west and east that seem a little brighter each year.