The Night SKY
 

OH NO not another TV thread:eek: No its not (phew!)

On another thread we've been discussing the nights and how they are not so cold at the moment. We sleep with the terrace door open, bathroom windows are left open 24h. (Not for long though).

As an insomniac, I am often up at 3-5am and watch TV, I need no heating and wear just a normal tracksuit bottom and sweats. I often go out to the terrace and look at the night sky which even with the CE light pollution is great. Orion's a belter! :)

It made me wonder where the best or closest place would be to see the night sky. With little in the way of towns etc around us - just golf ocean and natural parks, there must be some wonderful places close by where one even might be able to see e.g the sweep of the Milky Way - away from the lit up coastal towns and the lights of CE.

I don't want to be near the river - the first/obvious thought (eg the camino rural). I've seen the drug boats and helicopters and that man was murdered/dumped there. The river is a route for drugs. I don't want to stumble across a gang in the middle of the night, armed with binoculars!

I'm thinking north of Villablanca (but it seems a way off) or the road to Rio Seco behind M- Francisco... or perhaps up the Beja road and then inland to the barragem area, again a bit of a trek.

Any recommendations/thoughts nearby, please?

Thanks

Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

My personal answer would be on our terrace. Although we can see other apartment blocks to our left, there is nothing straight on or to the right except the stars and the flashing lights from the windmills. We often spend time just looking at the night sky. Very peaceful.
Kath

Re: The Night SKY
 

Not that nearby but not that far and a little extra holiday for you would be a drive down to Algaceras and get a ferry to Morocco. The Erg Chebbi dunes at Merzouga.
The Auberge Cafe du Sud is a fab place to stay, right in the dunes and you will see night skys like you have never seen before. Fantastic! the stars are almost touchable.

Re: The Night SKY
 

Thanks Kath - Something for you to look forward to when you arrive soon..... I'll pop round at 3am with a bottle of wine to see the stars on your terrace and in the morning after you've made me brekkie we'll head of to Morocco! (Thanks Olivia for that) ;)

Best place I ever saw the Milky Way and the stars was on a remote island in the Maldives. I swam out to a small katamaran, and lay on the neting and just looked up. Amazing. My dream is to see the Northern Lights as well. Bucket list stuff.

I'm thinking the Beja road and into the country is probably the closest to CE to have minimal light pollution...

Thanks

Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Now that's an offer I can't refuse hahaha

Re: The Night SKY
 

I believe there is an app for your smartfone that you just point at the sky and it tells you the names of the stars. Do you have it? If so what is it called?

Re: The Night SKY
 

The one we have on our iPad is Skyview Free but there are quite a number of others, so another reason for you to get 'teched up' Jon ;)

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Not quite the stars but I also believe there is an app to identify the planes that fly overhead too? do you have a name for that one. I now have Skyview on my smartfone and can't wait for it to go dark:) thanks.

Re: The Night SKY
 

Sounds great, I forgot about that. I remember Jag showing that ap on his smartphone, and the OH has an ipad, so need to finagle her into allowing me to put this on it.

I cant figure out how it works, as a tiny movement on earth even a fraction of a degree.... is multi light years difference out in space... and the direction sensors on the ipads etc, aren't that good.

I also am amazed by shazam, point it to any music, anywhere in the song and after a few seconds it tells you who the singer(s), orchestra's etc are, just with a little random sample. So it must be some sort of clever pattern recognition system...

Thanks

Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Ok, what you have to remember is that the stars are to us, effectively fixed points in space and as the light is coming from the stars to the iPad and not the other way round this means that you can move it around and view any part of the night sky with ease.

Re: The Night SKY
 

Sure you can view the night sky, but to differentiate one star from another and to accurately identify it, might mean that it recognises patterns and then extrapolates the other stars from there... using your GPS location. Take Cassiopeia for example its pretty recognisable, so I guess it sees the pattern and then identifies the other stars around it (just guessing as I was for shazam)

Pretty clever stuff though and fun!

Thanks
Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Jon
Sorry to spoil your enchantment with the app but it's probably just a static star-map held in the app which is orientated by the compass and GPS chips - no pattern recognition, no intelligence (not even alien intelligence), nothing clever at all :cry_smile:

Re: The Night SKY
 

Thanks for the input

Though the stars are fixed points, the earth moves so the stars appear to move relatively to us. If you do a long exposure night shot you will see the stars all 'moving' around a fixed spot. I think if I remember correctly it could be the north star

So it has to calculate your location + the time you looking against the star map + the direction and then match it up to its static star map and ensure that at least 1 star is matched correctly to get the rest right... as the direction sensor cant be that accurate.

Still pretty clever I think....



Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Although the compass will always point to Polaris (the North Star) - so there's your constant fixed point in the heavens. As long as your clock and calendar are correct and understand the offset due to your location (from the GPS) - then it's a fairly straightforward algorithm - simples :starsmile::starsmile:

Re: The Night SKY
 

as no one appears to have given you an answer - try flightradar24.com
it isn't free unless you become a contributor to the reporting system although free if you only use the pc version, but there are others such as flightstats.com which may be
hth

Re: The Night SKY
 

As OP for this thread, I think its run its course....

So to close it, here is a fitting end. One of my all-time favourite songs. Right to the last sentence.... near-genius! I never tire hearing the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq4uCWtQE24

MP are reforming and I fear that they belong in another time ..... but hope they will be successful

Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Just a quick postscript. I am in South Devon on a short holiday and last night I had to pull the car over + stop as the night sky was amazing!

You can see the Hubble telescope easily with the naked eye.

Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Mobile phone sky maps are great for right now, but there are also some great free programs for PCs which allow you to view the sky as seen from any location you choose, at any date and time, past present and future.

I use stellarium http://www.stellarium.org/. It took me a while to get used to it the first time I used it but once you get the hang of it it's fine.

It tells me that from where I'll be next Saturday night I should be able to see the Milky Way rising sometime between midnight and 1am....I'll report back if it's true.....

Re: The Night SKY
 

Wow sounds great, look forward to hearing about it.

Looks like a local astronomer, John Maclean from Sidmouth (where I am today) beat NASA and ESA re the ISON comet surviving its course through the sun

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/West...#axzz2mPF91tdE

Jon

Re: The Night SKY
 

Looks like the best place to go is in old Blighty after all.... Just got the gold award.
http://www.channel4.com/news/star-sk...ld-star-gazing

Northumberland international dark sky park

Along with

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/darkskygalloway
Galloway Forest Park as the first Dark Sky Park in the UK

Jon

What is a Dark Sky Park?
The International Dark Sky Association (IDA) has set up an award with the aim of reducing light pollution, conserving energy and looking after nature.

Their goals are to: stop the adverse effects of light pollution; Raise awareness about light pollution, its adverse effects, and its solutions; and to educate people about the values of quality outdoor lighting.

Which other countries have Dark Sky Parks?
There are two parks in the United States: Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah, the Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania, USA, with a Dark Sky Observatory park at www.geaugaparkdistrict.org/.

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Up in the Sierra there is very little light pollution. at the edge of our village the sky is endless! Even on our balcony it's a good place to watch meteor showers.

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Thanks Angie..... Just to add: Great news, potentially, I just got this in email from a friend and forum regular ....

http://www.discoverhuelva.com/news/t...for-stargazing

Also handy site for things Huelva

Including in the Huelva News about the tornado that hit recently and uprooted trees and damaged some roofs recently for us.... also here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pErQDzASJQ0

Jon

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Thanks very much. I can't get the Youtube video but it's nice to have the beauty of the night sky confirmed, and that I'm not just 'bigging up' my area, as we all do to a certain extent ;)

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A large area of county Kerry in Ireland has been only recently been announced as a Internation Dark Sky region. Seemingly it's the place to be for those star gazers.

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They're turning out all the street lights at midnight round here - we will soon qualify as a European Dark Area too (as well as accident blackspot of the EU)

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Looks like I missed a 'bucket list' event that happened not in some far flung Northern country, but even in Ol' Blighty

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/we...een-in-UK.html

Jon