We spent the hols in a bit of France with virtually no light pollution, and the views of the stars were stunning. Now I can recognise the Plough, Orion and Cassiopeia but that’s about it, but as the views were so amazing I downloaded a star map for the following night for that area, and spent ages gazing upwards spotting the Summer Triangle, the Teapot, Altair, Vega…fabulous. Couldn’t see the North Star but I now know how to find it…now I want more. Any other star gazers here?
The night sky
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I recently went to an observatory about an hours drive north of Perth with very little light pollution and suddenly the amount of stars you can see multiplies ten fold. Looking through powerful (but still domestic size) telescopes we saw Jupiter close up and countless other heavenly bodies (oo-er).
Best fact of the night was that the group of stars known as the Seven Sisters has a different name in various parts of the world and in Japan it’s used as the logo/badge for the Subaru car company.
I finally got to see the Southern Cross which is on the Aussie and NZ flags after years of not knowing where to look in the sky. It’s now possibly the most popular tattoo in Australia among the youngsters
My back garden is reasonably free of light pollution and on clear winter nights the sky can be wonderful. I’ve got a crappy telescope that I’m not sure how to work properly, but one night I got a good sighing of Jupiter with one of it’s bigger moons also plainly visible (Ganymede?). If you can, download Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/). It gives you a good representation of the night sky on your screen in real time. Good tool for pinpointing the planets and iirc, the ISS.
I also think that for beginners the smart phone apps are very useful. The ability for the map to change depending on where in the sky it is pointing is invaluable. Makes it much easier to find the planets for example; and also find the international space station when it flies overhead.
Miles
Yessity right, Night Sky Pro is excellent although the ambient music I find really annoying.
Seconded, Stellarium is awesome, literally.
On my phone I have SkyMap, which is utterly brill, even if I have walked into walls, tripped over mole-hills and stood in cow-pats as a result of using it in the gloom.
One of my favourite places in the world is the island of Sark. It has official Dark Sky Status (possibly the only island to have that, though there may be one too in the Hebrides).
http://www.sark.co.uk/stargazing-in-sark-3491
If you go to the above link and elsewhere on the Sark site, you may see why I love it so.
Was it the Auvergne Twang by any chance? We went there a few years back to a tiny village in the mountains where the trees outnumbered us a million to one.
They had loungers which we didn’t use during the day but we took to laying out there into the small hours with duvets, hot chocolate and binoculars. Literally awesome, and we had timed it by chance to be during the Leonids(?) meteor showers in August too.
No, further north – valley of le Loir, which runs north-south before turning west and joining the Loire at Angers. Sort of between Chartres and Tour. Very rural and unspoilt, not many big towns hence clear skies.
I’ve been to the Auvergne – as the old joke goes, the coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in the Auvergne. Stunningly beautiful and fucking freezing!
Yes. West Cork is a must, and also here in the West Country. Amazing things and sometimes just through an attic Velux attic window, pop your head out and there’s the Fastnet light, also pre-dawn wanderings, not as easily easy here, rural or not but do-able.Footpaths and tracks around the encroachment of yet more ‘community space’ eg noisy swearing football pricks of a Saturday afternoon, and for me, luckily out of ultimate earshot. The modern English village.
Two next essentials: driving license, telescope, and good quality ones are more affordable these days.
As for going rural, watch out for ignorant older locals quite happy to see their house prices rise despite cursed pavements and the decline of bare knuckle fighting as the local chargrined in hoc to the Tories now former Lib Dem despots eat viche gruel and yet encourage ‘that there chi chi’ so despised by ossifying rustics’, some form of a wider culture but alas all sacrificed to the spread of, yes, incomers (ironic, I know), the more even more vulgar self entitled modern middles class, who think nothing of wheeling a toddler around (that’s the Dads, playing ‘whee! Aeroplanes’ in the supermarket ailes as you try to forage alone, peacefully) and giving you a trendy infant booted glare if such you first don’t happily accept a kick in the head or a cuddly black eye. Quite Right. Families First.
I think it’s Tull’s ‘Songs From The Wood’ with my scrambled eggs and poached whatnot.
Love astronomy here. The light pollution is not terrible where I live, thanks to South Gloucestershire Council’s lax approach to streetlighting, and I can often be found in the garden at night peering upwards. I have a good pair of binoculars I use rather than a telescope. It’s quite thrilling to look at craters on the moon or just out into deep space. I also never get tired of watching the ISS pass overhead, amazing on so many levels. On holiday recently we were well off grid, and you could see the sweep of the Milky Way with the naked eye. Wonderful stuff.
I’d also recommend getting an almanac of some kind. 2017 ones will be appearing any day now, and they’re a useful guide to phenomena and events to look out for. This is the series I’ve used for the last few years:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/philips-month-by-month-stargazing-2017/heather-couper/nigel-henbest/9781849074254
Ta Kid. Yes we could see the Milky Way too. Amazing. Sometimes I miss spliff.
“well off grid” eh?
*winks*
If I’ve had a few too many on a Friday night I too can often be found in the garden at night peeing upwards – to try to clear the top of the tomato plants.
I dealt with a planning application for a new silica sand quarry a few years ago (bear with me) and, amongst the usual objections regarding noise, dust, traffic etc, I had an objection from the nearby astronomical society, raising concerns about floodlighting at the proposed quarry and loss of the last remaining piece of dark(ish) sky they could point their various bits of kit at.
I therefore decided to pop up there one Sunday evening and met a couple of the society’s members and spent the most fascinating couple of hours looking at various bits of the sky ranging from the moon to some galaxy lord knows how many light years away. Obviously discussed their concerns too and we now have a quarry in full operation which has a lighting scheme the society were fully involved in approving and which has no lights on out of hours unless triggered by intruders and then designed to automatically switch off after five minutes.
Everyone’s happy, job’s a good ‘un.
Agree with Max the Dog, Stellarium is really good.
“The Teapot”‘, Twang? I know you were in France but…..
Was it green or invisible?
Incredible but true. That’s what it’s called!
Have a cup of tea, have another one, have a cup of tea
Have a cup of tea, have another one, have a cup of tea
Have a cup of tea, have another one, have a cup of tea…
High in the sky, what do you see ?
Come down to Earth, a cup of tea
Flying saucer, flying teacup
From outer space, Flying Teapot!
we are representing the hubba cuppa tea party, of Tibet!
I went to the local planetarium with my son for a special Scouts evening all about the night sky. When they brought the lights down and you could see this blanket of stars, it was quite startling. As Artery says below, the night sky in NZ is something else
I live in a light polluted area of the south coast, so am lucky to make out even the most obvious constellations like the Plough on most nights, but Mrs B and I went on holiday to deepest darkest Wales a couple of years ago, and we were amazed by the fanstastic view of the heavens available on a clear night without the all pervading ambient glow that troubles most of our urban skies. I am no expert, but had assumed that the westerly air stream and lack of pollution probably contributed, but the thousands and thousands of points of light visible in the sky was truly breathtaking, better than I have ever seen anywhere else.
I love looking at the night sky. It’s a bit crap where we live in Coventry, but when it’s not raining I poke my head out the back door before locking up at night just to see if the stars are visible. On a good night I will lie out on the lawn for hours just lost in the wonder of it all. The Perseids display in August is generally the best time to see shooting stars.
We hired a camper van to tour the South Island of New Zealand in 2012. Best holiday ever! On the first night we were just settling down for the night when I popped into the driver’s seat to fetch something and glanced out the windscreen and gasped. The southern star field and milky way was revealed in all its raging glory. We sat there for hours with open mouths. Later in the same holiday we booked a night out at Mount John Observatory. This was just fantastic. Set atop a mountain in a light pollution free zone, you get to look through all manner of telescopes at lots of heavenly bodies. If you go to New Zealand, don’t miss it, but choose a night without moon for best effect. The night sky in the Southern hemisphere is just something else man.
NP Shooting Star by Bob Dylan followed by Observatory Crest by Captain Beefheart.
We first went camping in 2009ish in rural NZ and the first time I nipped out to the loo at about 3am made my jaw drop. A clear, moonless sky and this huge glittering carpet of light.