Hello and Dark Sky around Perth ?

[nudibranch]

Hello IceFolks.

I have already used some of your old posts to help my daughter and I get started on observing. So thanks for asking and answering them :thumbsup: She got a little Heritage 130P Dobsonian for Xmas and it can pick up a lot more than we expected!

We're in Perth (Doubleview) and while I'm amazed at what you can see through the light pollution, I was wondering what people around here do for dark sky's ? Is there some flat open places that are less than an hour and a half out from the northern suburbs ?

I took a drive out to Walyunga National Park near Pearce Airbase but it's closed at night so that was disappointing. And I was also surprised by how bad the sky looked even there! On a recent holiday we took the scope down to Gracetown and the views there were stunning and we even managed to track down comet Lovejoy :) Be nice to get that sort of experience without having to go down south for a week.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
:thanx:
Paul

[raymo]

The trick is to get as far from the city as possible, whilst getting the city
behind you, and not between you and your selected targets for the night.
So if you want to look to the west of a north /south line,I suggest that you drive up in the direction of Guilderton, and park near the coast, so that anywhere from SW to NE you are not looking over the city.
If you want to view to the east of a N/S line, I suggest that you drive up over Greenmount toward Northam so anywhere between N and S the city is behind you. To get skies dark enough for decent quality astrophotos you would have to go much further from the city.
raymo