Wanted: Good dark Sky Sites in Victoria

[John K]

With Jupiter now almost gone, I am planning to getting back into deep sky observing in the next few months and looking for a great dark sky site 2-3 hours from Melbourne to also try my hand at deep sky astrophotography.

I have been a past ASV member and spent many observing sessions at the Leon Mow ASV site in the 90's but I am no longer a member and from what I hear Bendigo now interferes a fait bit. This may also be the case for Murchison.

Based on this light pollution map http://www.inquinamentoluminoso.it/worldatlas/pages/fig9.htm
i was thinking that a place like The Terric Terric State Park 70kms north of Bendigo (200kms from Melbourne) would be a great alternative.

Otherwise as I have spent lots of time climbing in the Gramps that could be good but unsure about the situation there post the fires and I think it's further (ie Ararat is 200km from Melbourne).

Lake Mountain has also been mentioned. Not sure about the windy roads getting up there and weather and fog issues.

For the hard core Victorian deep sky astrophotographers and observers on IIS, what are your thoughts?

[leon]

Hi John

Couldn't get much better than at Snake valley where Ken lives, without the moon light you can barely see the hand in front of your face. ;)

Boy is it black out there :thumbsup:

Cheers Leon

[janoskiss]

Fog has never been a problem unless it's over the whole state. In fact it's always virtually dew free up there too. And the roads are fine. I drive up there in a '86 Corolla hatchback with ~250kkms on the clock, no probs. You're at the top in under 30 minutes from Marysville driving at a leisurely pace. Light pollution from Melbourne to the west is still visible but most of the sky is very good.

Best skies I've seen within couple of hours drive of Melbourne (or anywhere in Victoria for that matter) was just north of Mt Samaria state park last month (weekend before new moon IIRC). Very bright sparkling clear Milky Way! Just blew me away! (then it got cloudy after midnight... :() Combination of location and conditions no doubt.

[ballaratdragons]

Hiya John.

Yep, as Leon says, Snake Valley is VERRRYYYY dark. There are several great Dark spots in Victoria but here is suprisingly dark for it's close proximatey to Melbourne and Ballarat. It has to do with the surrounding area being higher up and blocking skyglow in all directions.

And it doesn't take long to get here from Melb :thumbsup:

Plus, when you get here there is always a hot cuppa waiting :)

[spudrick]

Hello John
I was at Snake Valley last night for the first time and i can vouch for the darkness, i walked out on the grounds and Ken was 1/2 mtr in front of me and the only way i knew that was because he was speaking. I could not see my hand in front of my face. It was Dark! :eyepop:
1 hour 15mins from my place - Melton
Got a coffee as well :)

[janoskiss]

Hopefully I can make it to both the Little Desert and Snake Valley astro camps. I'll be bringing my new toy to quantitatively test the sky: the Sky Quality Meter (http://unihedron.com/projects/darksky/). On top of Lake Mountain last w/e it read 21.5 (magnitudes/arc sec^2) at zenith.

[ballaratdragons]

Glad you cleared that up. Good to know there are 21.5 magnitudes in the arc sec^2. :shrug:

There's probably several nice DARK sites in Victoria but do they supply a Hot Coffee in a warm friendly Clubroom when you get there? or 240 volt power? :thumbsup:

[janoskiss]

:lol: I was not meaning to clear it up! ;) It will become more meaningful as I take more measurements to compare. There is a formula around for converting the mag/arcsec^2 figure to naked eye limiting mag, but I don't trust it so I did not quote it.

[fringe_dweller]

I suggest you go west or nw and get as close as possible to the darker south australian border, without being actually in sa - thats what all the other vics seem to do? :whistle:

[Starkler]

Just get 100km+ away from Melbourne outskirts and 50km+ away from major regional centres and the sky is looking pretty good ;)

[John K]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! Excellent.

Snake Valley sounds nice and close to home (Ken I'll e-mail you before dropping in the next few months).

The further away locations also sound great and it's nice exploring new observing locations in the middle of nowhere!

[janoskiss]

Why do you always have to be so damn practical, Geoff? :lol: :thumbsup:


I agrree. Astronomy is a great excuse to explore different national and state parks in near (and not so near) your area. :)

[Dave47tuc]

There plenty of dark skies in Victoria.
As always it depends on how much you want to drive.
Snake Valley is good but still to close to Ballarat to be fully dark. But having a place to go with friendly people is more of an advantage than not. Also SV seems to get great seeing in the mornings. :D
Keeping away from big towns like Bendigo etc will help. In the East of Victoria there are smaller towns so there are more darker skies there. I use to travel that way a lot.
Also nearer to the SA border has plenty of dark skies also.
The main rule I would follow is keep away from the big towns and as far away from Melbourne as possible. Where I live on the Mornington Peninsula we are close to Melbourne but can still find places where it’s dark to the South East and West. But never in the North!! Seems some big metropolis is there!
Good luck with your search.:thumbsup:

[John K]

I have labelled the attached light pollution map.

I can see why places like Mt Samaria NP are that dark as it's at the start of the great Alpine area, the Grampians is a huge wilderness and once you get past Horsham...well...you could really well be in the outback (according to the light pollution map).

The area between Ararat and Horsham also looks interestingly dark as does north of Bendigo.

Anyhow, plenty of options! just depends on how long I feel like driving I guess.

Thanks again!

[janoskiss]

Air quality will greatly affect sky conditions, so the light pollution map does not tell the whole story. Often you drive farther but the skies get no better. Past the 100-120km mark, you need to be lucky to get deeper skies.

[John K]

That's a very good point, totally agree, and the benefit of the Alpine area.
I have found in the past that despite being in a dark sky area, lots of dust in the atmosphere creates an airglow of some sort that brightens the sky.

[Starkler]

I find the hardest part to be actually finding an out of the way location that is accessable, safe and without trees blocking the view.

The nice open spaces (farmland) are usually fenced off, and areas without fences are full of trees :sadeyes:

[janoskiss]

I spent a week last xmas + new years near Falls Creek camping at 1500m. Even when the skies were clear, they were never anywhere near as dark as I've seen them elsewhere, much closer to Melbourne. Sometimes you just can't win. :shrug:


That's another good thing about mountains over 1000m. They all have great big carparks near the summit for the skiing season. Good for skiers but even better for astronomers during the rest of the year. :D

Mt Baw Baw is another good one not too far from Melbourne. Just pity the NP half is so isolated from the skiing (err I mean astronomy) side; if you want to go exploring the NP the day after a night under the stars, it's a long drive around the park.

[astrogeek]

I've just got back from camping in Terrick Terrick NP and I must say it is a beautiful place. However, there are lots of trees and I didn't see anywhere open enough for astronomy. That said, I didn't get up to the north of the park so there might be something up there. The other option, not really, would be to set up right on top of Mt. Terrick, which is a large granite out crop. Getting your stuff up there would be hard though and the wind was strong enough to allow my dad and I to lean almost 45 degrees into it :). I can't say what the skys are like because it was never clear when I was there.

[John K]

Thanks for the beta, that's great info.
I downloaded the Parks Vic guide on this NP and the northern part of the park seems to be a series of grassland paddocks which sound ideal for observing. I'll check it out over the comming months and report back for everyone's benefit.

p.s. yep, hills which tend to be windy, camp grounds which tend to have trees and fires don't tend to mix well with telescopes.

[ballaratdragons]

:sad: I'm getting engulfed by Grey Matter!!! :help:

[John K]

Looks like light polluting civilisation is slowly surrounding Snake Valley!
I bet in 20 years time we'll all have to go to Big Desert NP for really dark skies.

[fringe_dweller]

I hope all the little conservation parks dotted elsewhere around this great land arent like the ones we have investigated in SA.
They seem to be the spots that the early farmer/settlers couldnt easily use - ie too rocky and/or swampy, which isnt ideal for astronomy due to the immediate local microclimates these two features sometimes produce, specially in summer imo. And as some said - the obscuring treelines are bad too.
So in our very sporadic road trips we tend to go for random sneaky guerilla trips to outer remote farm land/paddocks - we dont leave anything but tripod prints anywayz, so no damage, and the farmers are asleep and none the wiser. We would almost never go to the same place twice, so its not a problem.

[xstream]

John, Cresta Valley at Mount Buffalo (http://www.mtbuffaloresort.com.au/gallery_scenery.php)is well worth the trip. Great Skies.
It's one spot we try to make it to a couple of times a year.
It's a pity the winter season destroys it for viewing.

[John K]

Thanks, had not thought about that location, excellent suggestion.
With Mt Buffalo Chalet closing down I guess it will mean less light pollution and less cars up on the Buffalo plains at night.