Dark Sky Reserves

[glenc]

Do we have any Dark Sky Reserves in Australia?

Other Dark Sky Reserves


Exmoor Dark Sky Reserve (http://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/environment/landscape/dark-skies): let the kids stay up all night on an off-season weekend to sample some of Britain’s clearest skies in the southwest
Mont-Mégantic Dark Sky Reserve (http://www.astrolab-parc-national-mont-megantic.org/en/light-pollution.htm): visit eastern North America’s most powerful telescope at Québec’s Popular Astronomy Festival in July and August
Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve (http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/naturesustainable-tourism/nature_aoraki-mackenzie-dark-sky-reserve.cfm): make a pilgrimage to New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre and Planetarium (https://www.facebook.com/SirEdmundHillaryAlpineCentre)
Namibrand Dark Sky Reserve (http://www.namibrand.com/): climb a red sand dune at night to feel the desert sands between your toes as you peer skyward in Namibia

http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130606-five-darkest-places-for-stargazing-this-summer

[gary]

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for the post and the link to the BBC article.

I think, by comparison, a good chunk of the Australian Continent could be regarded as one
big "de facto" dark sky location. :lol:

For example, I had a look on Google Earth and the distance from Mont-Mégantic Dark
Sky Reserve, in Canada to Quebec City, population half a million,
was only 150km. Think of Sydney to Bathurst. The distance to Montreal,
population 1.6 million, was 195km. Think Sydney to Orange. Those type of distances
from population centers of that size are unlikely to rank extremely high compared
to what enthusiasts would rank as "dark sky locations" here.

Even the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve, where the skies can be fantastic,
is only 200km, as the kiwi flies, from Christchurch, population 300,000.

What would be staggering though is the Namibrand Dark Sky Reserve out in the
Namib Desert. Namibia is a destination I have been wanting to get to for decades
and some of our German customers (Namibia is popular with Germans) tell me
the skies are wunderbar.

However, despite the terrible light pollution out of major Australian cities, we are
arguably spoilt here. I remember helping set up Andrew Murrell's 20"
near Glendambo the night after the eclipse in South Australia in 2002. With
Adelaide some 540km away in the distance, skies like that are pretty hard to beat. :thumbsup:

Thanks again for the link!

[Wavytone]

A few years ago I visited Aoraki and aside from the planetarium the resort has a telescope which they set up at the airstrip, away from the lights at the resort area. Despite only having a compact with me I managed a couple of photos. Being able to not only see but photograph the zodiacal light in a 1 minute shot implies the sky was very, very dark indeed:

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/7398429248/photos/1432078/scorpio-milky-way-and-the-zodiacal-light-taken-at-mt-cook-airstrip
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/7398429248/photos/1408576/mt-cook-by-moonlight

Three locations are particularly memorable for me:

The first was during the return of Halley's comet when (while visiting Whyalla) I had a perfect still night to go out into the Nullarbor to watch it rise over the desert. While it was spectacular I think there is an advantage to be had with altitude.

Then there is Mt Kaputar which is both remote and at 1500m above sea level, so it can give Bortle 1 skies and on a good night the visual limiting magnitude is the deepest I have ever seen, so much so you will just want to lie on the ground with binoculars and forget about telescopes for a while.A truly superb observing site IMHO and should be used more than it is.

Lastly, visiting Shangri-la in Yun-nan I was lucky enough to be up top of the cablecar at over 4000 metres one clear, fine evening. Bloody cold up there and the air is thin, you felt you were on the edge looking into deep space.

[AstralTraveller]

I agree the potential of Mt Kaputar is great, although the camping ground has some of the most troublesome roos I've ever met. The problem is that I've been there 5-6 times and I've never yet had a clear night. It hasn't always been raining, though one observing weekend organised by some ASNSW folk back in the 80's it bucketed down the whole long weekend, but it has never been cloud-free. I think that is why the Warrumbungles were preferred to Katutar for the observatory. They are pretty close (ca 150km I think) but the weather is different.

[tlgerdes]

So you're saying it is only 165kms by car on the road, and 140kms in direct straight line? :lol:

[gary]

Hi Trevor,

I performed some exhaustive calculations on the back of an old postage stamp I found
lying around and your numbers are more or less correct.

[BPO]

I once heard an astronaut say that when he visited that area it was the closest he ever came on Earth to feeling as if he was back in space again. It sounds like a truly amazing place.

[OzEclipse]

As far as I know, Mt Kaputar wasn't considered as a site. The weather at Siding Spring is far from ideal. I think 1/3 of nights are cloudy. The decision came down to a site in the Flinders Ranges with much better clear sky stats and Siding Spring. They chose Siding Spring because the sealed road was already there. It was going to cost $16, 000 extra to seal the road into the Flinders ranges site.

Kangaroos are a problem on Siding Spring as well. I remember using Tom Cragg's 12" f7 Cave Astrola newt at his house on the mountain at Siding Spring. Tom was the chief night assistant on the 150 inch for many years from commissioning of the 150 inch in 1974 until he retired 20+ years later. I was up a 6 ft ladder. Next thing Kangaroos were jumping all around the base of the ladder.

I told Tom about it the next day. He told me that he was up there one night and two males were fighting on the ladder base and he was scared they'd kick the ladder over. They kept circling the scope and when they were on the other side he came down the ladder and ran away.

Joe

Joe

[gary]

Hi Joe,

Harley Wood, NSW Government Astronomer, Richard Q. Twiss, of the University of
Sydney, Isadore Epstein, of Yale-Columbia Observatory and Ben Gascoigne,
of Mount Stromlo Observatory, first inspected Mount Kaputar as a possible base
for an observatory in August 1957. They then went on to try visit and Siding Springs but since
access was difficult, they had to bypass it. Gascoigne and Theodore Dunham
paid it a second visit some time later and managed to climb to the top.

Another place that was considered was Mount Bingar near Griffith, which
Bart Bok preferred as he had success doing work there with a 26".

[Reference "The Creation of the Ango-Australian Observatory" by Gascoigne eta. al]

In the mid-90's, a friend was photographing the kangaroos that were lying around
the grounds outside the cabins at Mt Kaputar. She had knelt down to photograph
a big boomer and when she went to stand up, it misinterpreted her intentions.
The roo rose, kicked out and managed to tear through her thick denim jeans and make
a gash in her leg. She was driven down the mountain to Narrabri hospital where they
put a few timely stitches in her leg which then allowed her to return to Mount Kaputar.

Best Regards

Gary

[Barrykgerdes]

Here's one for you Trevor.
Your uncle Robert worked at the TV station on Mt Kaputar for years. I often went up there to see him ,terrible road!. He was the tech for the "PMG" link til he retired a few years ago.

Barry

[Amaranthus]

Joe, this made me chuckle. I used to regularly observe with Tom when I lived on Siding Spring Mountain, using his 12" and also his C8. (I lived about 50m from him). I watched Halley's Comet from that scope, among many other things. Tom was a good friend. My other main 'tutor' was Rob McNaught - we had quite a little community up there in the late 1980s... Ahhh, the memories.