Well I finally decided to head away from town to check out the dark skies around here. Chose a spot about 20km NE of Renmark as the crow flies. Parked on the side of the dirt road and waited for darkness. Weather was warm and windy.
Well, I was not disappointed. There were some small light domes from Renmark, Paringa and what I assume were the Customs House. The skies are extremely dark and nothing like I've seen before, Orion was blazing and Sirius could be a risk to dark adaption! The Magellanic Clouds were amazing, right in your face and I could see the faint outer extensions of the LMC as well as the Tarantula Nebula.
M31 was easy. I could even see M33 intermittently. What struck me most was the Zodiacal Light. Never actually seen this before. But geez, it just about washed out all the stars where it was present and extended right up the meridian.
Because it was windy, there may have been reduced transparency, I don't know. I can only imagine seeing the Sagittarius Milkyway overhead on a cold, still winter night.
Even here at the moorings next to town, the skies are fantastic and the other night was out for a good couple hours just soaking it in.
Naked eye stuff at really dark sites can be awesome. I got into it one night at my dark site and decided to see how many globular clusters I could see naked eye.
This is what I noted
NGC5139 - easy with direct vision.
NGC104 - easy with direct vision.
NGC6752 - easy with direct vision.
M13 - easy with direct vision.
NGC6397 - easy with averted vision, difficult with direct vision.
M5 - easy with averted vision, difficult with direct vision.
M22 - easy with averted vision, difficult with direct vision.
M4 - difficult with averted vision.
M15 - difficult with averted vision.
M55 - difficult with averted vision.
NGC2808 - extremely difficult with averted vision.
This was in August, so a good time of the year to try it out. M3 should be easy when it comes around again, and apparently M92 is possible from higher latitudes where it is higher in the sky. So I have 11 confirmed with hopefully 2 more to come.
It had never occurred to me before to look for Uranus, but it was easy after all the naked eye practice on the globs.
But the fact you saw M33 indicates a pristine site, as I remember when growing up in Renmark.
I have spent a few nights lying on the top deck of a houseboat up river past Custom House on the Murray-Sunset National Park side, and in those days my eyes were great but I didn't know the names of what I was seeing in the sky - it was spectacular never-the-less. Of course naked eye observation assumes you have good vision and for many of us, as we age, we lose that visual ability - and we end up imaging ha ha. So enjoy it while you can.
This was in August, so a good time of the year to try it out. M3 should be easy when it comes around again, and apparently M92 is possible from higher latitudes where it is higher in the sky. So I have 11 confirmed with hopefully 2 more to come.
I can see M3 and M92 in Bortle 3 (or lower) skies with naked eye (averted) as well.
Did anyone see M81 ? I found NE sightings of M81 on the internet in very dark skies, but I never saw it.
It had never occurred to me before to look for Uranus, but it was easy after all the naked eye practice on the globs.
Same. I could just see it after confirming its location with binos. Not really a pristine site though. (Merrijijg NE Victoria) but far better than in Lux Melbournis.
Thanks guys. In skies like this, there is nothing quite like sitting on the back deck with a few beers in hand taking it all in. Here at my place the sky with the quarter moon is roughly equivalent to my moonless skies back in Melbourne. My search for a dark site is not over, I need to find somewhere away from the road. My alt-az mount I bought from Bintel is still sitting here unopened. Really need to assemble it, chuck the Vixen 130 on it and do some obs already!
