[rider]

I’m looking for any hints for finding comparatively dark sky sites in cities.

When possible, we head off to the country for a good view, but we would like to be able to see a star or two near home as well, so I naively spent last night driving around my local suburbs thinking that there must be somewhere that could be used.

I have now formulated “Rider’s rules of Illuminance”

• all public sites are lit to levels that require polarised sunglasses.
• all school grounds employ security guards to ensure that astronomers don’t vandalise the state government owned sky.
• all foreshore reserves have a legal requirement for high beam headlights to be left on in the carpark.
• any slightly darker areas are only to be occupied by children on wheeled appliances.
• any mildly suitable place will have a resident friendly drunk who happens to be an expert on all things.
• any other mildly suitable place will have innumerable quantities of starving mosquitos, sandflies and midges.

2 hours later we found a site which was better than any other. – our backyard.
( only I blazing street light, houses without curtain technology, and a little old lady in a 2 story house who is really into next-door neighbour observation)

Has anyone found a class of site (which may be legally entered) that provides better access to those little spots of light we all like to look at?

Rider