Folks, I'm going to visit friends in Canberra and they asked to bring a telescope to show them planets and bright nebulas etc. What is the best place in suburban Canberra to place the scope? Should be relatively dark and within Canberra. Tidbinbilla is good, bit a bit far. What about the top of Mt Stromlo? Does it have gates anywhere? Any other place? Somewhere on the north side of the city? Shouldn't be a true dark site - just something with less street lights and good non-obstructed sky.
Access to Mt Stromlo is through boomgates that close at 6pm.
The security guard comes by around 8pm and will ask anyone without an ANU or CAS identification card to leave....
What area do your friends live in? What day are you planning for? You can set up on the right, just before the boomgate and get reasonable views.
Alternately there is a place near the golf course at the Fairbairn (old RAAF base) that is quite good.....
Thanks for the golf course at the Fairbairn! The place right before the boomgate at Mt Stromlo is fine. Just checked Google view - we should be able to park our cars there and see East and South sky reasonably well.
Grassy area on top of Parliament House is probably not a good option. Especially with setting up a telescope.
What about Mount Ainslie? From my memory there was some flat open space at the very top near car park.
I live at the Fairbairn Golf Course - NOT ideal even remotely - LOTS of lights from Majura shopping centre/Bunnings, the airport, RAAF Fairbairn, the airport, oh, and the airport. I image here, but that's through necessity (I can read aircraft rego's with my eyes from where we live).
You COULD try the uni ovals at Bruce, but you'd need permission. Not dark, but wide open.
I'm in Belconnen. Very obstructed area and I can't travel but I've had help in the past and found a place out westward of gold creek where the land is flat with a good horizon. Basically the driveway of a farm. Nice and dark away from traffic and glow of canberra (which is honestly sweet FA compared to a real city). I've been disappointed with the mountain tops in canberra, they often offer poor views with lots of trees at observation points, especially black mountain, designed to encourage you to pay to get above it up telstra tower. Winds are a pain on the mountain tops too. If you have specific targets you want to see, plan them first and use google street view at prospective locations to see if you can actually get unobstructed views or not. Plus you have aircraft beacons etc on mountain tops like the lighthouse on mt ainslie so imagining chances suck. Maybe you can tee up a visit to Baz and his asign2 observatory? Theres lots of roads on the outskirts but often little room to pull over safely for observing. Maybe Lake George would be better choice? I used to use a local "dimmer than home" site at Lake Ginnendera where I got some great photos across the lake to telstra tower, supermoon, sunrises etc. It'd be a small hike though from closest car park and gets above trees East and north and some south.
- LOTS of lights from Majura shopping centre/Bunnings, the airport, RAAF Fairbairn, the airport, oh, and the airport. I image here, but that's through necessity (I can read aircraft rego's with my eyes from where we live).
