Flinders Ranges ... Dark Sky?

[slt (Gunther)]

I just spent a couple of nights in the Flinders Ranges, and I must say I was rather disappointed with the night sky. Possibly this was just due to some haze/thin high clouds, so maybe just my bad luck...

Anyone with experience of observing around Hawker, Wilpena, Blinman etc. ... is this normally a pretty good area, lets say compared to Arkaroola, which supposedly has "some of the darkest skies in the southern hemisphere"?

[sacredblack (Steve)]

howdy,

I'm a big fan of the Flinders and have spent quite a bit of time up there. The best time of year is winter when there is no dust in the sky. It's damn cold though but worth it. Last year I went up to Arkaroola, another fave place, in January and was totally clouded in for the whole week. That was a waste of lens hire. Strangely enough I've found the darkest skies in SA, for me, to be the coast around Victor Harbor and back towards Cape Jervis, looking out to south. I've done several timelapse shots, during winter, which have been darker than what I've done in the Flinders.

Other who have spent more time doing actual astronomy may have some more clues. But I think the bottom line is that Winter is always going to be better and the further north means less cloud.

Hope this helps,

Steve R.

[slt (Gunther)]

Thanks Steve.

Actually the reason I asked is that I'm looking to buy a bit of land for a holiday pad. I'm into bushwalking and photography in general, so on those counts alone the Flinders obviously rate very high. It's just that the (admittedly few) times I've come through there conditions for astronomy weren't ideal, which is a bummer, since it's the third big interest of mine. But yeah, the winter thing makes sense, less convection, so less dust in the air I guess.

[sacredblack (Steve)]

During a recent filming project I stayed mostly around Hawker and the skies were pretty good there though due to one reason or another I didn't actually do any star only night shoots.

Looking for a holiday place. Wow that would be wonderful. My wife and I have also thought about such a thing in the Flinder as we are also keen walkers. Doing the Heysen Trail in 5 walk parts per year at the moment. Plan end date - sometime in 10 - 12 years !

My most recent star work I shot in Orroroo which is nearish to Mt Remarkable and those nights very dark. Once again it was a cool August week.

Steve

[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

I was at Arkaroola in Winter of 2011 on my way to Lake Eyre. Skies were pretty dark. Haven't spent any dark nights in the Flinders Ranges since 1980's but they were pretty dark back then.

Some time back I created the following light pollution overlay for Google Earth from the world light pollution survey maps.

http://joe-cali.com/astronomy/downloads/AUSTRALIAN_LIGHT_POLLUTION.kmz

Download the file (2MB) and open it with Google Earth. You'll get the Google Earth map of Australia with the world light pollution Oceania map fitted to the Australian Coastline. For residents of the seventh state New Zealand is covered as well.

The Flinders Ranges is in the darkest zone.

I also have a similar layer for the USA for our Northern American members

http://joe-cali.com/astronomy/downloads/North_America_light_pollution.kmz

Joe

[slt (Gunther)]

Thanks Joe, I've been using that map/kmz for a couple of years (probably followed your instructions back then ). It'd be interesting to see any changes though, I guess that map is a few years old by now, and mine sites appear to be popping up all over this lovely continent of ours, and one just has to look at central Queensland to see what impact that has on the night sky

And thanks again Steve ... and Heysen is on my "to do' list

[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

If you've been using it for a couple of years, it isn't mine. I only did mine about a year ago for my own use and only put it on my web site recently to help out a friend.

It's easy enough to do so I imagine lot's of people have done it.

BTW Mine sites are not that widespread. The recently released DNB NASA light pollution map
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1212....3600x1800.jpg

imaged hundreds of bush fires all over central Australia that some people have been attributing to mine sites.

The map had bright spots all over the Great Sandy Desert where there are no mines, just beautiful dark skies. The bright spots were brighter than cities like Sydney. This is because the images were made with ISS Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite cameras so the fires came up particularly bright.

Joe