Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis
I'm going to be in Sydney CBD initially but hope to hire a car and escape the light dome to somewhere dark..but to where?
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Hi Dunk,
Leave the C8 behind and don't worry about 'scopes, but bring 2-3 eyepieces just in case. I doubt you will have any problems using someone else's if you rock up at one of the usual observing nights. Arguably the most important thing will be to decide what you'd like to see first, so bring an atlas (or Sky Safari Pro on an iPad). If you ask around here you might even be able to share the drive with someone else.
A few candidates:
a) Blue Mountains, Katoomba Airfield; watch this forum to see when its on
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/f...splay.php?f=16. This site is about 1h 45 drive from the city and dark enough for casual observing of deep sky stuff, its a reasonable compromise if you want to drive home the same night. Usually the visual scopes present range from a 7" Mak, a few C8's, a 13" dob and occasionally a 17" dob.
b) ASNSW has two sites - an observatory at Mt Bowen with a 16" Dobsonian, though this is has worse light pollution than the Katoomba site. Alternatively they have a dark sky site on at a property - Wiruna - about 3-3.5 hours drive from Sydney. This is a weekend trip, you will need to be prepared to stay the night (or two). Some big dobs there, too.
http://www.asnsw.com/node/755
c) Northern Sydney Astro Society has a location on the northern city fringe, about 40 minutes form the CBD at Turramurra golf course
http://nsas.org.au/observing/ On a clear night you will just barely see the milky way and a few galaxies are visible in say a C8 or 10" dob. The seeing at this site is often good, if planets are your thing.
d) SAS has an observatory on the southern fringe about an hours drive from the CBD, though it is rather more light polluted than the Turramurra site and mainly used for public outreach nights
http://www.sasi.net.au/index.php?opt...d=22&Itemid=35
If you really feel the itch badly, I suspect you could buy a dob secondhand or even borrow one (there must be a few C8's or Meade 8's not being used), so having your own eyepieces is probably a good idea.