Dark skies - at last

At last darkness is returning to the sub-arctic zone. Unfortunately we had a very good summer here with high temperature and clear skies every day. Now, as it is possible to make astronomical observations, we obviously have used up the good weather quota.

My friend has acquired a device for measuring the sky darkness. I think the measured value is "apparent magnitude for one square minute of sky". Of course we will measure the value for our observation sites and make them available at this forum. In particular, it will be interesting to see if the sky darkness varies with the solar cycle.

My special project for the first few months is to become more familiar with the region Cygnus - Cepheus - Lacerta. Although this part of the sky is circumpolar here, it is one of the regions I know the least. As far as I know it doesn't contain any famous show objects, but several DSOs and double stars should be quite good in the 12.5-inch.

Inge S

Hi Inge,
At Mt Pinos the reading is about 21.5 and at another local site it is 21.34. This is a typical dark sky here with the darkest anywhere within 100 miles being 21.95 and that is out in the Mojave Desert.

Hi Inge. Glad to hear your dark skies are returning.
Is that the Unihedron Sky Quality Meter that your friend has?
I've got one and find it very useful for documenting the relative
darkness of different sites that I observe at.
I look forward to hearing what kind of readings you get.
I have taken mine through several southwestern states, and the best readings
I have found so far were 21.75, in south-central Utah.
The phase of the moon will, of course, influence your readings somewhat.
I thought I had a pretty good reading at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon recently,
but then an hour later a thin, waning crescent moon rose.
I'm sure it would have been darker there a couple days later.
Linton