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Welcome to IIS.
For objects such as the Moon and the Planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars (these show most detail in amateur sized ‘scopes), then Redlands is fine as these objects are so bright that the local light pollution doesn’t really matter, except aesthetically!
For Deep Sky Objects (DSO’s) such as galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, etc. then a dark sky site definitely gives the best, most detailed and inspirational views, although DSO’s are generally quite faint and you get to appreciate them more with experience and larger telescope apertures.
Visually, DSO’s rarely look as stunning as the photos of DSO’s you may have seen in magazines. Most of these images were taken by cameras with exposure times of 1 hour and more; unfortunately, the eye cannot accumulate or “build up” the light as can CCD cameras or the less used film cameras.
In terms of getting to see some ‘scopes, there is an astronomy club in Redlands, the Redlands Astronomical Society (RAS) and if you can get along to one of their meetings, you should be able to look through a variety of different ‘scopes as each type has strengths and weaknesses.
Cheers
Dennis
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