Quote:
Originally Posted by janoskiss
Just a few km North of Mt Samaria State Park was where I've ever seen the deepest. And I've travelled far and wide in search of dark skies over the past 10 years. I spent a lot of time under the night sky almost everywhere in Victoria and also North of the border in NSW. Mt Samaria SP was the best in my experience. (There is free camping in the park as well.) I've never seen the Milky Way sparkle so and the dust lanes so detailed and distinct. It was a clear winter night. I was so impressed that I was compelled to post about it at the time: www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=12639
The skies have degraded since. It's mostly not due to light pollution but changing climate. Summer skies in Victoria are becoming more and more humid (sub-tropical like) which reduces transparency. Winter skies have fewer clear nights (than summer nights) but when it's clear in winter it's likely to be better than any clear summer night. |
Interesting comment. In February we camped at Kelly's Tree, which is not far to the east of Mt Samaria and at 800m elevation. There is a large, basically flat, clearing in the centre of the camping area big enough for a dozen scopes. We were there for five nights and two of them were great, in fact one was superb. Faint stars (mag ~ 6) sitting just above the trees (elevation <10*) were rock solid; not a hint of flickering. Although we only had 10x50 binos I still spent a couple of happy hours enjoying the big splashy fuzzies. I really haven't seen skies that good for many years. The last three nights were affected by the moon and some cloud but a couple of times when I got up for the midnight widdle the sky was, again, great. However, even in Feb it was cold at night and was soon driven back under the covers.