Road trip to dark skies...?

My girlfriend and I want pack up the car, including the new Teleport,
and head out west (from the east coast) for a few weeks in September
to get away from it all.

Eventually we would like to end up at some nice dark sky site(s).
Arizona? New Mexico? Somewhere else? We would not be camping.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Whats your budget, what do you like to see?

Lots of nice viewing locations in the Southwest. Personally I like the Navajo
National Monument, its about 7300 feet and a long way from nowhere. Light
pollution amounts to some individual Navajo Hogans out on the plain about 15
miles away, each one is probably about as bright as Sirius. A good place to
camp, nearest hotel is in Kayenta, 29 miles away. Best camp spot is in the
unmarked Overflow Campground. (Anyone interested, I will privately give
directions.)

Chinle and Canyon De Chelley are nice as well. Monument Valley is another
favorite, depending where one stays. Drive out the road towards Mexican Hat
and things get pretty lonely.

In the 4 Corners area there are lots of places to go and see during the day,
most likely you can find a decent dark spot at night.

Just plan around the moon...

jon

The problem with Rachael, NV--there are so many stars, you have trouble
finding constellations.
The solution for me was to wear sunglasses at night, simulating suburban
skies.

On the east coast we also have trouble finding constellations. Our problem
has been a perpetual cloud cover only broken by occasional rain. I have not
used a telescope in 5 weeks, and then my viewing session was cut short by
cloud cover. This year has been unique, as I honestly can't remember a
worse year in 2 decades. Message completed...I've vented...feels a little
better.

Al


"etok" wrote in message
...

"Listener" wrote in message
...
My girlfriend and I want pack up the car, including the new Teleport,
and head out west (from the east coast) for a few weeks in September
to get away from it all.

Eventually we would like to end up at some nice dark sky site(s).
Arizona? New Mexico? Somewhere else? We would not be camping.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Delta, UT. Rachael, NV (or Austin, NV, or Henderson, NV), to name a few.
The problem with Rachael, NV--there are so many stars, you have trouble
finding constellations.
The solution for me was to wear sunglasses at night, simulating suburban
skies. Then I could find constellations.
Henderson had a lovely Nerve Gas storage area, as I recall.

Etok



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No budget constraints.

As I said, we wouldn't be camping this trip. I don't think we want to
be in a very desolate, deserted location. I will check out the 4
corners area.

Thanks.


On 11 Aug 2003 23:30:43 GMT, (Jon Isaacs) wrote:

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Whats your budget, what do you like to see?

Lots of nice viewing locations in the Southwest. Personally I like the Navajo
National Monument, its about 7300 feet and a long way from nowhere. Light
pollution amounts to some individual Navajo Hogans out on the plain about 15
miles away, each one is probably about as bright as Sirius. A good place to
camp, nearest hotel is in Kayenta, 29 miles away. Best camp spot is in the
unmarked Overflow Campground. (Anyone interested, I will privately give
directions.)

Chinle and Canyon De Chelley are nice as well. Monument Valley is another
favorite, depending where one stays. Drive out the road towards Mexican Hat
and things get pretty lonely.

In the 4 Corners area there are lots of places to go and see during the day,
most likely you can find a decent dark spot at night.

Just plan around the moon...

jon

On 11 Aug 2003 19:19:05 GMT, "etok" wrote:

"Listener" wrote in message
...
My girlfriend and I want pack up the car, including the new Teleport,
and head out west (from the east coast) for a few weeks in September
to get away from it all.

Eventually we would like to end up at some nice dark sky site(s).
Arizona? New Mexico? Somewhere else? We would not be camping.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Delta, UT. Rachael, NV (or Austin, NV, or Henderson, NV), to name a few.
The problem with Rachael, NV--there are so many stars, you have trouble
finding constellations.
The solution for me was to wear sunglasses at night, simulating suburban
skies. Then I could find constellations.
Henderson had a lovely Nerve Gas storage area, as I recall.

Etok

I will check them out. Thanks. As for too many stars, I did get the
push-to with the Teleport, so that won't be a problem.

It seems to me that S&T had an article on measuring dark skies, and part of the article mentioned
some road running N-S from Idaho into Nevada that was supposedlyt the darkest hwy in the U.S.

Listener wrote:

No budget constraints.

As I said, we wouldn't be camping this trip. I don't think we want to
be in a very desolate, deserted location. I will check out the 4
corners area.

Thanks.

On 11 Aug 2003 23:30:43 GMT, (Jon Isaacs) wrote:

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Whats your budget, what do you like to see?

Lots of nice viewing locations in the Southwest. Personally I like the Navajo
National Monument, its about 7300 feet and a long way from nowhere. Light
pollution amounts to some individual Navajo Hogans out on the plain about 15
miles away, each one is probably about as bright as Sirius. A good place to
camp, nearest hotel is in Kayenta, 29 miles away. Best camp spot is in the
unmarked Overflow Campground. (Anyone interested, I will privately give
directions.)

Chinle and Canyon De Chelley are nice as well. Monument Valley is another
favorite, depending where one stays. Drive out the road towards Mexican Hat
and things get pretty lonely.

In the 4 Corners area there are lots of places to go and see during the day,
most likely you can find a decent dark spot at night.

Just plan around the moon...

jon



--
Wayne T. Watson (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N, 2,701 feet, Nevada City, CA)
-- GMT-8 hr std. time, RJ Rcvr
39° 8' 0" N, 121° 1' 0" W

"...those of us alive today have about 625 times more lead in our
blood than people did a century ago." ... "many or our large
corporations are still making it (CFCs) in their plants overseas."
From Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything

Web Page: home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews
Imaginarium Museum: home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews/imaginarium.html

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 00:12:59 GMT, "Al"
wrote:

The problem with Rachael, NV--there are so many stars, you have trouble
finding constellations.
The solution for me was to wear sunglasses at night, simulating suburban
skies.

On the east coast we also have trouble finding constellations. Our problem
has been a perpetual cloud cover only broken by occasional rain. I have not
used a telescope in 5 weeks, and then my viewing session was cut short by
cloud cover. This year has been unique, as I honestly can't remember a
worse year in 2 decades. Message completed...I've vented...feels a little
better.

Al

Agreed. This season has just been really, really awful. I'm hoping for
some clear skies around the new moon. Fingers crossed.

Listener wrote:
No budget constraints.

As I said, we wouldn't be camping this trip. I don't think we want to
be in a very desolate, deserted location. I will check out the 4
corners area.

Thanks.

Check out Salida, CO about 100 mile south west of Denver (2.5 hour
drive). We're low at 7000 feet but we're surrounded by mountains
with lots of very dark observing spots within 10 miles. We have a good
approximation of civilization in town with lots of things to do when the
sun's up, a few nice restaurants, shops, B&Bs etc. Observing doesn't
get much better than in September, with conditions warmer than winter,
calmer and dryer air than mid-summer.
Good luck, see:
http://www.fourteenernet.com/salida/

Cheers,
Shawn

Shawn Curry wrote:

Listener wrote:
No budget constraints.

As I said, we wouldn't be camping this trip. I don't think we want to
be in a very desolate, deserted location. I will check out the 4
corners area.

Thanks.

Check out Salida, CO about 100 mile south west of Denver (2.5 hour
drive). We're low at 7000 feet but we're surrounded by mountains
with lots of very dark observing spots within 10 miles. We have a good
approximation of civilization in town with lots of things to do when the
sun's up, a few nice restaurants, shops, B&Bs etc. Observing doesn't
get much better than in September, with conditions warmer than winter,
calmer and dryer air than mid-summer.
Good luck, see:
http://www.fourteenernet.com/salida/

The last week in August I'm going to Crestone which is about an hour
from Salida on the west side of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. The
elevations available run from maybe 7,000 to 8,000 (I will be at about
7,800 feet). The sky is quite dark and from a vantage point without view
of the San Louis Valley, there is little distraction. Accommodation in
Crestone may be available by September. There are some nice townhouses
next to the Desert Sage Restaurant. There are public trails and
campgrounds in the San Isabel National Forest where it would be possible
to observe.

Another possibility that I am familiar with is the Pike National Forest
about 40 miles west of Colorado Springs. West of the Lost Creek
Wilderness and north of US24, there are many Forest Service roads with
occasional open meadows. You just have to drive around and look for
spots. Elevation is 8,000 to 9,000 feet mostly. The roads are a little
rough but a car can do most of them. I was at a nice one this weekend
but there was the moon unfortunately. Accommodation would be Woodland
Park (about 20 miles) or Colorado Springs. You could also try South Park
for observing. It is on the west side of Wilkerson Pass along US24. It
is mostly private property so you would have to be right on the edge in
Pike National Forest (that's marked fairly well).

If you consider any of these, get both the Pike National Forest map and
the San Isabel National Forest map. These are very helpful in navigating
the maze of roads.

BTW, the darkest sky I remember ever seeing was from the campground at
Monument Valley. As someone else put it, there were too many stars. The
Salida area, Crestone area and the area west of Lost Creek will
sometimes give that impression as well.

Hey! Is the UFO thing at Hooper this week or last week? :-)

Chuck
--
... The times have been,
That, when the brains were out,
the man would die. ... Macbeth
Chuck Simmons

Wayne Watson wrote in message ...

It seems to me that S&T had an article on measuring dark skies,
and part of the article mentioned some road running N-S from
Idaho into Nevada that was supposedlyt the darkest hwy in the U.S.

No doubt some road running through the Great Basin does best at
avoiding population centers, but to some extent, that is misleading.
In fact, well over 50% of the area between the front ranges of the
Rockies and the Pacific Ocean has skies that are, for all practical
purposes, as dark as you can get. No point quibbling over that
last 0.2 mag of sky brightness. All you have to do is make sure
that you are very far (over 80 miles, say) from a city over one
million, reasonably far (over 40 miles, say) from a city over
100,000, and respectably far (over 20 miles, say) from a big town.
That includes almost all of the American West. Probably even
includes much of the Pacific Coast, the most densely populated
part of the area. One of the things that distinguishes the
West is highly concentrated population, as opposed to the more
dispersed population of the East, South, and Midwest.

More important issues for astronomy are latitude (for access to
southern skies, especially in summer), percentage of cloud cover
(low in most of the southern West), distance from major sources
of smoke (natural and artificial), accessibility, and altitude.

- Tony Flanders