Amaranthus
03-12-2014, 03:13 PM
An interesting (fairly new) paper I came across: http://www.mnras.org/content/442/3/2600.full
Some interesting quotes:
and...
The whole article is worth reading. I always thought Bortle's NELMs were unrealistic and suggested visual 'trickery' in some form (scintillation, momentary glimpses, etc. i.e. not what a visual observer is really interested in).
From my personal experience, I could see mag 5.5 (with difficulty) from suburban Adelaide, and at my new dark-sky site in southern Tasmania, I have glimpsed mag 6.8 and can easily do 6.5 (the biggest difference is in the Milky Way and nebulosity, and sky background in photographs - chalk and cheese between the two sites!)
Some interesting quotes:
and...
The whole article is worth reading. I always thought Bortle's NELMs were unrealistic and suggested visual 'trickery' in some form (scintillation, momentary glimpses, etc. i.e. not what a visual observer is really interested in).
From my personal experience, I could see mag 5.5 (with difficulty) from suburban Adelaide, and at my new dark-sky site in southern Tasmania, I have glimpsed mag 6.8 and can easily do 6.5 (the biggest difference is in the Milky Way and nebulosity, and sky background in photographs - chalk and cheese between the two sites!)