The night sky

lenshack said:
Best night sky sightings I had were from the Western Canaries, clear air, way out in the ocean, so a popular spot for observatories
Click to expand...

For me it was sat up a water tower in Kruger national park. We could see for miles and not see a single artificial light.

My back garden is not far from a road with street lighting on it and a whole row of horrible orange lights. The council did fit a shroud around it which cut down on some light, but you could clearly see shadows of the trees as the lighting flooded the garden. A couple of days ago they swapped them for the new LED ones and removed the shroud. I went out last night and the garden was pitch black, you could barely see the streetlights and no shadows.

The stargazing was shit because of thick cloud and a few spots of rain, but it didn't stop me wandering around thinking how good the star gazing could potentially be now.
 


taipeisafc said:
The bible is proof? A book written by unknown authors up to 2000 years ago about a time they had no concept of. Seems strange to treat that as proof why not the Aboriginal creation myth of dreamtime which has a longer history than the bible or the Naxi from South West China who believe we all came out of a big frog (or something like that)
Click to expand...

At least it’s a tangible book, unlike the Big Bang theory which was made up in someone’s head.
 
richyrich said:
Well look..

This is just incorrect. There's 50 years of mathematics, logic and scientific proof applied to the big bang theory. If you don't know that then you shouldn't be commenting on it.
Click to expand...

How does something explode (Big Bang) from nothing?
 
DaveH said:
For me it was sat up a water tower in Kruger national park. We could see for miles and not see a single artificial light.

My back garden is not far from a road with street lighting on it and a whole row of horrible orange lights. The council did fit a shroud around it which cut down on some light, but you could clearly see shadows of the trees as the lighting flooded the garden. A couple of days ago they swapped them for the new LED ones and removed the shroud. I went out last night and the garden was pitch black, you could barely see the streetlights and no shadows.

The stargazing was shit because of thick cloud and a few spots of rain, but it didn't stop me wandering around thinking how good the star gazing could potentially be now.
Click to expand...
Having been to the Kruger a couple of times, the bloke who I went on safaris with decided the best place to view the Southern Cross was from the Makgadikgadi salt pans in Botswana. They are believed to be the largest salt plans on the planet, covering something like 10,000 square miles, so as you can imagine the light pollution was as close to zero as you can get.

Off we trotted, driving for hours in the land rover, finally pitching up in the camp, and getting the fire going to cook on. Meanwhile the heavens decided tonight was not going to be the night for star gazing, and we had hour after hour of torrential downpour, making the salt pans slippery as hell and a nightmare to drive on, but worse still, you couldn't see a singe star through the thick rain clouds. I have a picture of my mate sat with a table cloth over his head while the rain was pouring off the canopy and he looks as miserable as sin :lol:

The next night, it had cleared up and we had the most spectacular display of the night sky, shooting stars the works, but nothing could console him that it hadn't happened in his planned location.

Best laid plans and all that. Botswana's Ancient Salt Pan
 
I was an avid stargazer until the diabetes created havoc with my eyesight.
I still have a 12 inch dob with an argo navis push to system that I'll never use again.
I'll probably donate it to one of the local astronomy clubs when I get round to it.
 

Back
Top