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Old 09-03-2015, 01:33 PM
julianh72 (Julian)
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julianh72 is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Kelvin Grove
Posts: 1,301
I'm strictly a back-yard / front-yard astronomer, with just an occasional trip to dark skies. (One "advantage" of living in a light-polluted city is that the rare trip to a dark sky site is ALWAYS overwhelming - I'd hate to get bored / blasé about living in a dark sky site!)

My back-yard gets the best view to the North, and my front yard gets the best view to the North-West, West and South, and that's where I spend most of my time. I don't get much of an easterly view at all, partly because of the tall trees in that direction, and partly because of the glow from Brisbane City - about 6 km to my East.

Living in a leafy suburb, I don't have too many bright lights from the neighbours spilling directly onto my viewing sites, so my biggest issue is general urban light pollution / sky-glow, rather than direct light spilling. (Luckily, there isn't much suburbia to my West, and there is a large forest park to my west and south, so I don't get too much sky-glow in those directions.) I have a couple of streetlights that cast straight onto parts of my front yard, but I set up in the shadow of my neighbour's garage, and that does the trick. I also sometimes use a patio umbrella to provide shielding from a couple of bright light sources - I imagine a tarp screen would work just as well.
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