The view from light polluted Queens, NY

I have a Nexstar 114GT (4.5 inch) reflector and can't see much here in
the middle of Queens which is very light polluted. I want to see
nebulas and galaxies but it is impossible here. I'm planning on
selling this telescope and getting a Skyquest XT8 dobsonian. With it
I'd like to drive out onto Long Island and get a better view. Can
anyone recommend a good place to drive out onto? Is Jones Beach/Robert
Moses Park a good place, or do I need to go out farther? I would also
like to see the Milky Way. I hope I don't have to go out all the way
to the tip, Montauk Long Island.

"Buck" wrote in message ...
I have a Nexstar 114GT (4.5 inch) reflector and can't see much here in
the middle of Queens which is very light polluted. I want to see
nebulas and galaxies but it is impossible here. I'm planning on
selling this telescope and getting a Skyquest XT8 dobsonian. With it
I'd like to drive out onto Long Island and get a better view. Can
anyone recommend a good place to drive out onto? Is Jones Beach/Robert
Moses Park a good place, or do I need to go out farther? I would also
like to see the Milky Way. I hope I don't have to go out all the way
to the tip, Montauk Long Island.

Hehe, I was about to suggest just that.

--
Hilton Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lon -71° 04' 35.3"
Lat +42° 11' 06.7"
---------------------------------------------------------------
Webcam Astroimaging
http://home.earthlink.net/~hiltoneva...troimaging.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------
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http://www.chempensoftware.com

While there may be "passable" sites within a reasonable driving range
of NYC, it is unlikely you will find any really "good" skies closer
than 100 miles from the city.

I reside in the Hudson Valley, 75 miles north of NYC, and find my own
skies increasingly less suitable for visual observing each year. In
travelling around to checkout site quality other places, I've seen
nothing that even approaches the skies I had at my home location 25
years ago, even as much as 30-40 miles west, north, or east of me.

Incidentally, from what I was told by another highly experienced
observer, one can nowadays clearly detect the lightdome of the NY/NJ/CT
Metropolitan Area even in the southern-most Adirondacks, as well as
from eastern PA.

Very little of the MilkyWay's true appearance is going to be evident
within 50-75 miles of the city. So, my advice would be to venture out
of the city as far as you feel is reasonable for yourself and try to
make the best of the prevailing conditions there. You might also try
examining http://cleardarksky.com/csk/ under their light polution
maps page for a site...but it suggests even the very tip of Montauk is
far from excellent!

CNJ999

On Sat, 21 May 2005 11:10:03 GMT, "Hilton"
wrote:



Hehe, I was about to suggest just that.

lol

On 21 May 2005 05:14:37 -0700, "CNJ999" wrote:

While there may be "passable" sites within a reasonable driving range
of NYC, it is unlikely you will find any really "good" skies closer
than 100 miles from the city.

I reside in the Hudson Valley, 75 miles north of NYC, and find my own
skies increasingly less suitable for visual observing each year. In
travelling around to checkout site quality other places, I've seen
nothing that even approaches the skies I had at my home location 25
years ago, even as much as 30-40 miles west, north, or east of me.

Incidentally, from what I was told by another highly experienced
observer, one can nowadays clearly detect the lightdome of the NY/NJ/CT
Metropolitan Area even in the southern-most Adirondacks, as well as
from eastern PA.

Very little of the MilkyWay's true appearance is going to be evident
within 50-75 miles of the city. So, my advice would be to venture out
of the city as far as you feel is reasonable for yourself and try to
make the best of the prevailing conditions there. You might also try
examining http://cleardarksky.com/csk/ under their light polution
maps page for a site...but it suggests even the very tip of Montauk is
far from excellent!

CNJ999

Ok I guess I'll have to do without a great view of the Milky Way but I
would like to be able to see nebulas and galaxies, do you think Jones
Beach/Robert Moses Park is too close to the city to see these things?

Buck wrote:
Ok I guess I'll have to do without a great view of the Milky Way but
I
would like to be able to see nebulas and galaxies, do you think Jones
Beach/Robert Moses Park is too close to the city to see these things?

I would expect that nowadays Jones Beach/Robert Moses Park is too close
to NYC to afford any reasonable views of all but the brightest deep sky
objects. Extended nebulae, with the exception of M42, definitely
require fairly dark skies to be well seen. However, globular clusters
and many small, bright, planetaries show up fairly well under
moderately light poluted skies. Galaxies, on the other hand, depending
on their physical appearance and surface brightness, may vary greatly
in how well visible they are. Objects like M81, M51, and a few other
galaxies may well look OK if situated near the zenith but very likely
M33 and similar open spirals will escape detection altogether under the
same conditions.

CNJ999

Buck wrote:

I have a Nexstar 114GT (4.5 inch) reflector and can't see much here
in
the middle of Queens which is very light polluted. I want to see
nebulas and galaxies but it is impossible here. I'm planning on
selling this telescope and getting a Skyquest XT8 dobsonian. With it
I'd like to drive out onto Long Island and get a better view. Can
anyone recommend a good place to drive out onto? Is Jones
Beach/Robert
Moses Park a good place, or do I need to go out farther? I would also
like to see the Milky Way. I hope I don't have to go out all the way
to the tip, Montauk Long Island.

With an 8-inch scope, it's a fair bet that you can see at least the
cores of many galaxies even from your home in Queens. But aside from
the thrill of detecting them, you want get much pleasure from them.

Unfortunately, the middle of Queens is, of all the places in the
world, one of the ones that's least accessible to reasonably dark
skies. That's the bad side of living on a densely-populated island
that has only a few connections to the mainland! Prospects are much
better from, say, Manhattan or the Bronx.

I've never observed from Robert Moses State Park, but it has been
mentioned many times before on this newsgroup, so it's undoubtedly
a local optimal compromise for many people. Here's one quote:

------------------------------------------------------------------
I live in the same area. I do most of my observing from my backyard,
but
when I want a quick trip to somewhere a bit darker I head down to
Robert
Moses State Park. You can get a 1-year permit for about $10 from the LI
State Parks permit department that will give you access to Parking
Field #2.
It is fairly dark and on most clear nights you will find a bunch of
other
observers doing their thing in the far corner of the lot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

It would appear from the maps originally published in the World Atlas
of Light Pollution (http://www.lightpollution.it/dmsp) and referenced
at http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk for the Clear Dark Sky Clock,
that the park is in the "orange" zone. Throughout this zone, the
summer Milky Way is readily visible, and it even begins to show
some texture toward the outer edge of the zone. And not only the
cores but a good deal of the disks of galaxies are visible through
telescopes.

Also, you're lucky that it's on the south side of the island, and
all the good summer stuff is to the south. Looking out over the
ocean, the sky will be a lot darker than looking north toward
the huddled masses.

Montauk, of course, is much much darker. If you get a chance, it's
definitely worth a visit. It may not be dark by John Bortle's
standards, but it's much darker than most Americans have ever
dreamed of. In the green zone, the Milky Way is truly grand.

- Tony Flanders

wrote:
It would appear from the maps originally published in the World Atlas
of Light Pollution (http://www.lightpollution.it/dmsp) and referenced
at http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk for the Clear Dark Sky Clock,
that the park is in the "orange" zone. Throughout this zone, the
summer Milky Way is readily visible, and it even begins to show
some texture toward the outer edge of the zone. And not only the
cores but a good deal of the disks of galaxies are visible through
telescopes.

Also, you're lucky that it's on the south side of the island, and
all the good summer stuff is to the south. Looking out over the
ocean, the sky will be a lot darker than looking north toward
the huddled masses.

Montauk, of course, is much much darker. If you get a chance, it's
definitely worth a visit. It may not be dark by John Bortle's
standards, but it's much darker than most Americans have ever
dreamed of. In the green zone, the Milky Way is truly grand.

Hi Tony. As someone who used to give presentations at Jones Beach years
ago, I can say straight away that it is no better than a class 6-7 site
(in fact Clear Sky Clock has it situated in the Red zone, not Orange).
If you have no place else to go it's OK, particularly toward the south,
but with all that Gotham glow to the west of you, it's not a place I'd
care to do much deep sky hunting from...and that damn windblown sand!

Although it's been years since I was out there last, I don't think even
the extreme south fork of Montauk is all that great anymore. Certainly,
it can no longer be considered "darker than most Americans have ever
dreamed of". In fact, I wouldn't rate it better than a class 3. There
are plenty of locations, even in many of the Eastern States, that are
decidely superior by a full class on the Bortle Dark Sky Scale. If
you've never seen dark skies before you might be impressed to see
Montauk skies but those at a true class 1 or 2 site leave city dwellers
awestruck (they are better than Star Wars Episode III)!

CNJ999

I don't think even
the extreme south fork of Montauk is all that great anymore.
Certainly,
it can no longer be considered "darker than most Americans have ever
dreamed of"... There are plenty of locations, even in many of the
Eastern States, that are decidely superior ...

Of course there are plenty of places much darker than Montauk,
including some within weekend driving distance of New York City.
However, I stand by my statement: it's darker than most Americans
have ever dreamed of. That may be a sad statement about most
American's dreams, but it's certainly true.

What's really sad, though, is that there are almost certainly
lots of Americans who live in places where the Milky Way is
readily visible, but have never seen it. People who walk
straight from car headlights to "security lights," and have
never let their eyes dark-adapt enough to see the night sky.

As for Robert Moses State Park, the latest incarnation of the
Clear Sky Clock puts it just inside the orange zone, near the
border with red. That's about the same as my club's observing
field, where I go quite often. What can I say? On the one hand,
it's pretty sorry -- nobody would dream of calling it dark,
with multiple major overlapping light domes over 7/8 of the
sky. On the other hand, the Milky Way is *quite* easy to see,
and some of the brighter galaxies display fairly intricate
structure in big scopes when they're high in the sky. And
there's no place darker within a reasonable weeknight drive.
You make do with what you've got -- it's better than not
observing at all!

- Tony Flanders

Good points, Tony. My biggest concern is that we are rapidly
approaching the point of having largely an entire generation of U.S.
amateur astronomers who really have no idea whatever what a truly dark
sky looks like...the kind that actually prevailed just 20 miles from
Manhattan when I was young!

Interestingly, even though I've visited quite a number of world famous
professional observatory sites over the years, and have been to the
Outback, the Alps, and the remote plains of Canada, the darkest site I
ever saw as an adult was Nantucket Island in the 1960's (nakedeye
limiting magnitude close to 8.0). It the skies of places like Palomar
and the TSP, in later years, to shame! Sadly, those conditions are now
part of the distant past.

CNJ999