I headed away from the enormous light dome of Phoenix to visit my parents up in far NW Arizona for Thanksgiving on Wednesday and naturally brought my buddy Fred, an 8 inch Dob, along with me. Wednesday night I got in a good three hours of observing through the scope, and who knows how long of just staring at the Milky Way 'cause it's been a while since I was at a sky that dark. This was at a location near Burro Creek campground, btw, which is about halfway up to my parents' place.
Anyway, I stopped there again on my way home Thursday night. I was way too tired to do any real observing, but I got to see something really cool. There was a haze over about half the sky, very high thin clouds. The stars were visible through it, and they looked about like what I can see from my patio at home. Looking from Orion over towards Polaris there were very few stars. Then there was a line where the haze ended and the *stars* came out. It was incredible! The contrast had me just staring from the crappy sky I'm used to, to the cloudless section where the Milky Way came out of the clouds and touched the horizon. It was like taking a good sized chunk of a really dark sky and sticking it in the middle of the city. Seeing the difference between the two sections of sky was enough to convince me I need to get out more often.
Now if only I could have taken a picture of the whole sky somehow, to illustrate to the city folk what they're missing...
Anyway, I stopped there again on my way home Thursday night. I was way too tired to do any real observing, but I got to see something really cool. There was a haze over about half the sky, very high thin clouds. The stars were visible through it, and they looked about like what I can see from my patio at home. Looking from Orion over towards Polaris there were very few stars. Then there was a line where the haze ended and the *stars* came out. It was incredible! The contrast had me just staring from the crappy sky I'm used to, to the cloudless section where the Milky Way came out of the clouds and touched the horizon. It was like taking a good sized chunk of a really dark sky and sticking it in the middle of the city. Seeing the difference between the two sections of sky was enough to convince me I need to get out more often.
Now if only I could have taken a picture of the whole sky somehow, to illustrate to the city folk what they're missing... 