Best places for a clear sky!

[04Stefan07]

I am thinking of getting away for a day or 2 and would like to head to a location somewhere in Victoria that has a nice clear night sky.

I am currently in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Does anyone know of any great places with good accommodation that is between 1 hour to around 3 hours away?

Thanks!

[mill]

So nobody here will answer a simple question ?
This forum has gone lower than low i see :(
Stefan, you can go to Snake Valley for great sky's and some good company.
There is no accommodation in SV so you have to find something in Ballarat.
The 12Th of April is our next club night and you are more than welcome to come over and see some very dark skies.
At the club nights you can pitch a tent if you like or you can stay at a motel in Ballarat if you want.
Just pm me for details.
I just wish ppl would post something that made sense :(

[dannat]

stefan from where you live you need to get ideally above the great divide, that means going Nth & W.
some places id suggest include
-lake nagambie just over 1hr caravan pk & camping near lake -nice flat horizon
-heathcote-more trees but dk skies 1.5hrs
-lake eppalock-fairly flat -very little light pollution from bendigo (though you get supplies easily from there) 1.5hrs
-castlemaine, up the calder 1.5hrs
-snake valley (which is close to ballarat) prob 1.5hrs for you

[Hagar]

What a rude pack of mungrells. A simple question which could be answered quite easily and politely. Look at the line up: Lewis M Queensland, Ron Queensland ( you should know better), Ken Western Australia, Adrian NSW, You should all feel ashamed of yourselves. Are your post scores down a bit?
At least the Victorians who answered answered honestly, more than you can say about the idiot brigade. I again know why I venture in here rarely now.

The obvious answer would be to look for an area north of the great dividing range. Benella, Wangaratta any of the flat lands North will be your best bet of still clear skies. Snake Valley is another great alternative.

[mill]

Thanks Doug and well said :)

[Nico13]

I started reading this and was wondering when I'd get to a sensible answer. Well done to those who did and to those who didn't at least you could admit you didn't have any idea while having your fun.

[barx1963]

Well said Martin and Doug, a bit of fun is OK but a bit of respect to the OP is warranted. And nice to see you here Doug!

Malcolm

[AG Hybrid]

Wow so much aggression.
But, wouldn't you agree that a "nice clear night sky" would be indicative of the weather more so than the location? With the southern weather so unpredictable no actual location can be pointed on a map with certainty that it will fore fill the criteria of the OP's question? Thus, a meaningful answer is difficult to provide.

Hence why some of the responses are somewhat comedical?

Perhaps if OP narrowed the question down to dark skies with near by accommodation?

Feel free to lambast me if I am wrong. Perhaps I am just playing semantics.

[Hagar]

Excuses,excuses,excuses. Lambast you. I think you have done that yourself.
Rant over.

[04Stefan07]

Thank you to those who answered my question and helped me out :). I will research on those mentioned locations :D.

[LewisM]

Good luck :)

Sorry for the divergence

[04Stefan07]

Seriously? According to some helpful responses they understood what I was talking about.

[barx1963]

The point is that General Chat does not mean that a query is to be taken as an excuse to be flippant. Of course you can make humorous remarks, but a little respect is required. Someone has obviously made a reasonable query and no one made even a simple attempt to answer! is it so hard to say "I am not from Vic so cannot offer much advice" then perhaps make a humorous comment.

This forum should be about sharing knowledge and helping newbies, a little respect goes a long way methinks!
And I think it is disrespectful to assume that a query is to be treated this way if itis in General chat

Mods can I suggest we delete all posts apart from the original query and parts that actually answer the query?

Malcolm

[04Stefan07]

Thanks for the invite Martin. I will contact you if I decide to come! :D

[04Stefan07]

Very useful information, I will have a look at each of these places. Thank you Daniel!

[04Stefan07]

Cheers for the locations, will research them further!

[alistairsam]

Hi
I often head to Kinglake to a members house to image, and skies there are dark enough to not need an LP filter. It's to the east of course but is only 45 mins away so is my fav spot. So you don't really need to go too far always.
This was taken from there with no LP filter.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=104489

As others mentioned, SV has some really dark skies, heathcote of course if you're an ASV member, the Otways are amazing if you wanted to camp out, mornington peninsula ast.society's site is also dark and have open nights.

If you're looking for places with accommodation, you'd have to remember they might have their lights on through the night and that can be a nuisance.

Alistair

[04Stefan07]

Thank you! Woahhhh that photo you took is amazing. Excellent shot!

By the way nice avatar of Voyager!

[mill]

Some people have to work and can't reply to a post before coming home Ron :)
And Lewis, why cant you just shut up for once?

Last post here.
Next time i better pm the OP when i want to say something.

[sheeny]

OK guys... I have deleted some posts from this thread under the general banner of "not appropriate". Some were getting too heated and personal. Some just didn't add any value to the thread, or were just fester fodder, so I cleaned them up at the same time.

Humour is fine in general chat, provided it isn't offensive or disrespectful, but when 8 out of the first 10 replies to a thread do not address the OP's question in a reasonable way, it turns people off.

Al.

[MattT]

Hi Stefan,
For somewhere thats self contained, I recommend the Grampians....can't for the life of me think what it's called but out of the touristy spots close to one of those horrible private zoos...has 5 self contained cottages,and my fav place is the Murrindindi National Park but thats tents and BYO everything ...but great dark skies.
Matt

[astroron]

Al,I am not impressed with some of your selections of deletions.
You leave a post calling people mongrels yet delete my post correcting a common fallacy,
You have deleted a post of mine in the past for saying that someone had made a silly post and yet you allow a post calling people mongrels.?
Some consistency is required here.
I think some people are just too precious,and complain too readily.
There was not too much wrong with the thread till Mill, (Martin) had is whinge, if he had just answered the question without saying what he did then the thread would IMHO would have died a natural death and the guy would have had his answer.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[AG Hybrid]

I agree. People are getting butt hurt too easily these days.
Nothing was particularly offensive except for the post with rampant name calling which was not deleted as pointed out by Ron. Blatant inconsistency.

[Hagar]

You blokes have to be kidding me. You honestly can't be that stupid.

[LewisM]

To paraphrase Dirty Harry, a man has to ask HIMSELF such a question.

[04Stefan07]

Holiday plans have been delayed but am looking up places now. Hopefully to book for the end of July.

Again thanks to the ones who helped :).