How far have you travelled to observe?

[Daring Dave]

Thus far I have travelled about 50k west of Melbourne to find dark skies....... (Near Gisbourne) Was worth every bit..HUGE difference even with a bright moon...

How far do others travel to escape the city lights ??

A few years back a friend travelled to the middle of nowhere in northern Sth Aust to observe...only a 16 hr drive from Melb...



Cheers

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Every month I plan to travel 62 kms to my club's dark site at Linden in the Blue Mountains. Usually it seems cloud intervenes and the plan comes unstuck, but that is the closest dark site for me

On occasion I have travelled further-for examplewhen I visited the Magellan Observatory..I filed a report somewhere here in this forum

[Mick (Michael)]

As far as it takes Dave, but usually only 30km to my parents place for dark sky, out of the city/big country town.

[Saturn%5 (Graeme)]

Hi All,
I dont travel that much much, But when i do its about 5km out of the the town to a mates place,I guess that is the advantage of living in a samll town.

[iceman (Mike)]

I haven't been out to dark skies much, but when I do go, I like to go about 20-25 minutes drive up to Mangrove Mountain.. it's far enough out of town to have lovely dark skies, and the soccer oval I observe from has some good views of all the horizons.

If I want to go a little further, I go to Koolang Observatory, which is another 30 minutes drive further up that road. I sometimes go for their Friday or Saturday open night where they get out some 10" dobs and depending on whose giving the show, sometimes the 20" dob makes an appearance too.

Seeing the tarantula nebula and jupiter through the 20" was spectacular.

[rumples riot]

I travel to two sites; one is about 20K from Adelaide and nice and dark, and the other is 213K to my block over on York Peninsula. Extremely dark skies, can't wait till christmas.

Paul

[mch62 (Mark)]

I travel at times out to a relatives place in a town called Stanthorpe , about 21/2 hrs drive west of Brisbane.
I only do that when there is a particularly good Comet or such to observe .

[dsturnbull]

isn't there an observatory in linden, seeker?

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Yes the Linden observatory is where my club-The Western Sydney Astronomical Society goes to observe.

There is an area that is nicely mown and kept aside for WSAAG members to observe from. ..usually a couple of saturdays a month. I have gone up on other nights of the week as well once or twice.

But as I said earlier in this thread seems like ages since Ive gotten any observing done there because of the rotten weather we have been having

[iceman (Mike)]

Ain't it terrible seeker.. the weather around sydney has just been horrible, haven't had an observing night for over 2 weeks now

[Dave47tuc (David)]

Hi Guy's,
I travelled from Melbourne to Woomera twice!!!
In 1998 and 2000 to catch the falling stars,
The great Leonids.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Come to think of it I have to tell my Venus transit story....

8 of June I have naturally taken the day off and planned to go to Bowen Mountain -in the Blue Mountains-to view the transit with others from the Astronomical Society of NSW at the ASNSW site.


By the time we get there (the whole family is with me ) there is solid cloud. Its already mid-day and only a few hours to first contact.



What are we going to do?

we ring Lithgow Tourist information on the mobile. The girl says, nah there is cloud everywhere. D we go back home? It was cloudy when we left

ring Bathurst-this is at least a couple of hours away-the girl at tourist information says clear skies and she reckons the playing field just before you enter town would be a great place to set up

so do we stay or go? maybe it will clear here? if we guess wrong we have 8 years to wait before the next transit..lets go we decide

less than two hours left to first contact..pile into the car already groaning with two scopes, mounts, tripods, laptop, tables, three cameras and I forget what else, but we had a ton of equipment..in the end the kids had to hold the OTA of the newtonian in their hands all the way in the back seat

now I'm tearing up Bells Line of Road at barely legal speed with one eye on the sky..is the cloud following us?

we come out of cloud just before we start the descent from the mountains into Lithgow ...and just before the memorial..my son spots a clearing by the side of the highway.....and the sky is clear

I hang a U turn and we have maybe 10 minutes to first contact..mad panic to get all the gear out of the back of the car

we set up...and manage to miss first first contact !!

anyway we managed to image second contact and then most of the transit till sunset

[craxguy]

Nice hunt seeker,

I watch the venus transit from my balcony. took a roll of photograph and then before i print it i manage to put it inside my jeans pocket that i dumped into the washing machine. rush it to the emergency room (read:photo shop) and declared dead!! i still have the roll with me untill now, "new" in the shell!!

btw im a 1st time poster here, g'day to ya all

ohh and to answer the original question in this forum, its 3m (from my room to my balcony)

[iceman (Mike)]

doh nice story Seeker, sorry to hear about your troubles but glad you got some viewing in.

Also, craxguy, nice to see you found your way here, and thanks for signing up and contributing!

[edosaurus_rex]

190km every month except May around the New Moon for Deep Sky. (N32.926 W99.2346) It's called Fort Griffin State Historical Park. Over the years we've formed a good relationship with the park rangers and they let us go up to the old fort to observe after normal park visiting hours. They ask for a small (tiny) fee of $2 USD to stay the night and they'll let you pitch a tent to sleep it off the following morning. Normally there are between 3 and 12 guys there on moonless weekends.

Once a year I go to the Texas Star Party (750km) near the McDonald observatory in Fort Davis, TX.

Ed

[ving (David)]

gee, about 20mins from my place is the oaks airfield... been meaning to go to my astro socs spot in balangalow (sp) forest (you know, where ivan milat was)...

99% of the time i'm in my backyard tho. it dark enough most of the time

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Lake Mountain is becoming a regular site for me. 120km from Melbourne, and about the same from where I live. The big flat carparks set up for the snow season are perfect for observing. And when the seeing is good, it's very good.

I'll be doing some observing in Europe hopefully later this year. That will be about 15000km away. I'll be buying a 10" Dob when I get there.

[beren]

On a semi regular basis about 45min out of Perth , the city is on a coastal plain bordered by the Darling range {450m above sea level} and state forest so its not bad . Thanks to a bit of 4wd experiance ive found a few good spots well away from potential impromtu visitors Some family friends have just brought a farmstead 1.5 hours NE of the city so Ill be able to set up there to
In the US I always notice this place mentioned http://home.earthlink.net/~dreyna14/pinos.htm a lot of diehards travel a long wy to ge there

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

For very very dark skies I carry my scope about 5 paces from my back door! If I want it even Darker I have to carry it up the back paddock!! Ahhh, the country.

The only time I have viewed away from home (in even darker sky) was at the Snake Valley Astro Camp last November and I had to travel 2k for that.

Apart from that I use to do a bit of viewing at our societies Ballarat Observatory but the last time I did that was about 17 years ago.

In other words, I don't have to travel anywhere.

[norm]

I usually goto Walcha several times a yr to visit inlaws, about 420k's from Sydney CBD. Clear dark skies. It was the 1st time I took the Skymaster's 15 x70 binos and I wasn't disappointed.
Just with the naked eye it was mind blowing enough, but with the bino's I could identify things I couldn't normally track down. Just scanning the Milky Way was awesome.
I could make out LMC and SMC with naked eye and area around Coal sack which normally in light polluted Sydney I couldn't (not with my eyes anyway). So many things to see.

Envious of you guys who have permanent dark skies!! Might have to re-locate to the country!