Best night sky in Australia?

[ikarus]

Hello,

I am new to this forum. I and my girlfriend are from Europe and are thinking of settling down in Australia.
Both of us are amateur astronomers. We would appreciate any information on where there are good places to observe the australian night sky. At the same time it would be great if this could be combined with a nearby university that offers astrophysics or astronomy where my girlfriend could finish her studies in this field.

Please any advices you have would be of great help to us.

clear sky,
Silvia and Thomas

[[1ponders]]

:hi: and :welcome: Silvia and Thomas. If you can get way from the cities, just about the rest of Australia has some fantastic dark skies.

If you are looking for Astronomy courses then both Swinburne and James Cook Universities both offer online astronomy post grad courses. You can find the links in this thread here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=16652&highlight=Uni)

[spacezebra]

Hi Silva and Thomas

Welcome to IIS forum - this forum is a great source of information about the questions you have posted. Looking forward to chatting soon.

Cheers Petra

[xelasnave]

Welcome Siva and Thomas.
The centre of the Universe is best viewed for the centre of the Universe Tabualm.
Bit of a conflict there as you need to be away from the city to get the benefit of our dark skies. Please get out and have a look when you can you will appreciate it I suspect coming from the Northside.
If you could do your Uni on line dont overlook the North Coast..mmm or the South Coast wow hard to narrow it down.
Alex

[ikarus]

Hello, thank you for your answers.
Maybe our question was not asked specificly enough. Of course we are searching for an area with low light pollution, high altitude, best seeing, dry, with the most cloudless skies throughout the year and where we can observe from our home, which of course, we first have to find.

As it is not possible to drive thoughout Australia by car to find such a spot with a good infrastructure ( a. e.University within 100 km etc.) we hope to find here a more specific location that fullfills those criterions.

Clear Skies,
Silvia and Thomas

[[1ponders]]

Is it essential to physically attend University or would Silvia be prepared to study online?

[ikarus]

Hello Paul,

lets say it is not essential, what would be your tip ?

She is studying undergraduate now, and wants to finish the master´s degree there, what would be your tip if its not possible online ?

Clear Skies
Silvia and Thomas

[Omaroo]

You could come and live in the Cooma area, in the foot-hills of the Snowy Mountains on the NSW/Victorian border. We have a property there that is set at around the 1,000m mark - meaning a relatively stable atmosphere and cool to cold temperatures at night. Seeing is normally very good and the skies are very dark. It's a beautiful area if you like semi-alpine landscape.

Canberra is about an hour's drive north and, being the nations' capital, has university facilities there.

Cheers
Chris

[[1ponders]]

Both Swinburne and James Cook Uni do Masters in Astronomy. I know they can both be done online, but I'm not sure about on campus. If you check the link in my post at the start you will find links to both Universities in that thread

[[1ponders]]

I forgot that Canberra does full time astronomy as well, one of our Iceinspace member (silvinator) is doing astronomy there.

Thanks for jogging my memory Chris

[[1ponders]]

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/

http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/mathphys/astronomy/doctor.shtml

[[1ponders]]

Just checked Canberra and it doesn't look like they are offering anything this year.

But the ANU does
http://www.astronomy.org.au/ngn/engine.php?SID=1000010&AID=100096

[Omaroo]

No worries Paul :)

Paul Francis is a lecturer at the ANU and I don't think you'd find too many better lecturers. For those that have heard him, he is entertaining as well an being very knowledgeable. He is one of the scientists in charge of the Australian involvement with the twin Gemini projects. He has spoken to us as a guest speaker at the Macarthur Astronomical Society.

Here is the page from the ANU: http://msowww.anu.edu.au/%7Epfrancis/courses/

[rogerg]

Very broad question!

My 2c worth:

If you/your girlfriend are studying astronomy and hence interested in working in the field, I'd be sticking to NSW or ACT. I don't think the other states really have much in the way of capabilities to support a career in astronomy. Sure there are institutions, observatories, etc here and there - but not like in ACT or NSW, is my impression.

That narrows your search down a little, to those states.

As for dark skies - I'm no help, I live in WA. :) Dark skies everywhere here. Living in the hills the skies are average (can easily see milky way, lmc, smc) but still light polluted. There are places here you could live 1.5 hours from the CBD and have quite dark skies, but that's a bit of a drive. Anyway, I don't think you want to be looking in WA considering your interest in studying/career.

[John Saunders]

Hi Thomas and Silvia.

You might want to consider the University of Southern Queensland at Toowoomba, 132kms west of Brisbane. Toowoomba is a reasonably sized city with a population of 120,000 and is located on the Great Dividing Range 700m above sea level.

Being a regional centre it has all the facilities of a city, but with easy access to dark sky locations. Of particular interest for you is the astrophysics courses offerred by the university which encompass undergraduate, post graduate certificate, masters and doctoral studies. The university runs its own observatory at Mount Kent. Details are available at the following link:

www.usq.edu.au/astronomy (http://www.usq.edu.au/astronomy)

There is more than adequate information about Toowoomba at:

www.toowoomba.net.au (http://www.toowoomba.net.au)

Hope this is helpful to you.

John

[ballaratdragons]

Welcome Thomas and Silvia.

Geez, 90% of Australia has VERY dark sky! If you are able to study online you could live almost anywhere in this great land.

But if you need regular access to a University it will narrow your chances of good dark sky.

I live in the dark and have Ballarat University only 25 mins away but I doubt that they would do Astronomy.

[cometcatcher]

I don't know where the best is but I do know where the WORST place in Australia is for astronomy. Right where I am in Mackay! Actually anywhere in the top half of Australia is affected by summer monsoons. Sometimes we don't even see the sun for months.

Maybe I'm just mad because this happened during the Comet McNaught show. But it is bad here. Seeing is horrible too. And there's mosquitoes, snakes etc.

It's always hot so CCD cameras have lots of hot pixels.

[erick]

You didn't mention the huge crocodiles, cometcatcher :scared:

[mickoking]

50 kays north of Coober Pedy, South Australia, Very very dark there :) But a long way from any Uni, sorry

[okiscopey]

Thomas and Silvia, cannot help with Uni information, but here's a link to a map showing night sky brightness for Oceania, including Australia. You can download a high-res TIFF if needed:

http://www.lightpollution.it/worldatlas/pages/fig9.htm

[DaveR]

Best night sky I have seen in Oz was from near Nimmitabel - east of Cooma heading to Bega but still in the high country on top of the range. 20 years ago but still remember as absolutely jaw dropping. Wife and I stopped for 2 mins for a smoke which ended up lasting an hour - would have been longer but we were expected by relatives in Tura Beach.

Swear I could see colour in the Milky Way - probaly couldnt but the memeory is vivid.

ps I get jealous every time I see Omaroo's tag line and think of the Cooma sky versus down town Perth :mad2:

Not directly relevant to the query, but if you enroll at ANU you are not far from that part of Oz.

[cometcatcher]

I thought if I mentioned them Ikarus might not want to come here at all. :whistle: