Good place to go in NSW for astrophotography

[tak530]

Hi,

My friends and I will have a trip to Australia for astrophotography in the
coming April. We plan to go to Coonabarabran but were told the weather in Coonabarabran is not quite good these days. I hope it will become fair and clear in April but still think we'd better have a backup plan in case it's still raining then. I wonder if there is any other good spot for taking DSO in NSW you would recommend to foreign visitors ?

Thank you in advance.

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Mack@Taiwan

[glenc]

Try the Sunshine map for April here: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/climatology/sunshine_hours/IDCJCM0013_sunshine-hours.shtml

[iceman]

Hi Mack.
I think Coonababran will be fine in April, there's a group heading up there this weekend for some dark sky observing.

How far away from the city did you want to go? Will you be renting a car/van etc?

[xstream]

G'day Mack,

If you're planning to come in April you may wish to consider the South Pacific Star Party 13-15 April which is hosted by the ASNSW (http://www.asnsw.com/) each year at their country property Wiruna near Ilford. You'll find great dark skies and excellent company for that weekend.
It's certainly worth considering stopping there on you way to or back from Coonabarabran, depending on what your time frame is.

[tak530]

Thanks for replying. I found the Sunshine map very useful.

>How far away from the city did you want to go? Will you be renting a car/van etc?
Our plan is to rent a car at Sydney airport or fly to Dubbo and then rent a car at Dubbo airport. So I guess a few hundreds kilometers away from Dubbo or Sydney will be a reasonable distance for us to travel.

>you may wish to consider the South Pacific Star Party 13-15 April
Yes, I know the Star Party, but we will arrive at Sydeny in the early morning on 15 April, so we might not be able to make it to go to the star party.