Just starting out

[bluejeans (Matt)]

After being disappointed with green bortle-class skies within about 20km of my house, I'm going to try heading out around 100km to try some naked-eye astronomy in a truly dark sky area:
http://i40.tinypic.com/34j6cro.png

I can see there being problems from this village (will link a google maps link in a moment) because it's close to a major highway, and there are some streetlights and houses. Here's the location that I think would be best, yet being close to the town centre:

http://goo.gl/maps/kKqfp

Are the streetlights and house lights that would be behind me going to interfere a great deal? At this stage I'm only interested in naked eye astronomy, I get the impression that I probably won't see a picture-perfect dark sky, but a sea of stars even without the milky way or m33 would be worth it. I can't really get too much further away from a population centre as this has to all be done by public transport. I'm going on a night with a new moon and minimal cloud cover, and I can be there for 1 1/2 hours after astronomical twilight ends, which I guess will be enough to get a taste.

[Kunama]

Hello Matt and welcome, you should get some really dark sky around Ross, I stayed there some time ago and the views were superb. You won't have to go very far from the town to avoid any light pollution.

A pair of cheap binoculars is all you need for a closer look. I used a pair of 1950 Japanese binos recently and they were every bit as good as many of their modern counterparts.

[bluejeans (Matt)]

Originally Posted by Kunama

Hello Matt and welcome, you should get some really dark sky around Ross, I stayed there some time ago and the views were superb. You won't have to go very far from the town to avoid any light pollution.

A pair of cheap binoculars is all you need for a closer look. I used a pair of 1950 Japanese binos recently and they were every bit as good as many of their modern counterparts.

Oatlands is also in a black zone, though only by about 10 or 20km, would there be just as good? It's just that the sooner I get there, the longer I have before having to head back. Also Tunbridge is another spot that is pretty much in the middle of the black zone in the midlands, but there's no pub or anything, so if the weather took a turn for the worse, I'd be stuck!