You don't need a telescope

basketballfreak6 wrote in post #17959466
thanks mate! i don't know how to describe how dark...but i am about half hour drive from city centre if that means anything haha

but suburb i live definitely not that bright...most light would be from street lights

G'day mate, greetings from the seriously light polluted Sydney
I can drive an hour from home and still not get out of the yellow zone

here's the Brisbane region for you from this site
http://darksitefinder.​com/maps/world.html


cheers
Dave

artyman wrote in post #17960848
The best argument for intelligent life is that they have the sense to avoids us

Love that !!!

Davenn wrote in post #17960924
G'day mate, greetings from the seriously light polluted Sydney
I can drive an hour from home and still not get out of the yellow zone

here's the Brisbane region for you from this site
http://darksitefinder.​com/maps/world.html

cheers
Dave

Hosted photo: posted by Davenn in
./showthread.php?p=179​60924&i=i22171358
forum: Astronomy & Celestial

that's awesome Dave thanks for the link!

i am in yellow zone :P

Davenn wrote in post #17960924
G'day mate, greetings from the seriously light polluted Sydney
I can drive an hour from home and still not get out of the yellow zone

here's the Brisbane region for you from this site
http://darksitefinder.​com/maps/world.html

cheers
Dave

Hosted photo: posted by Davenn in
./showthread.php?p=179​60924&i=i22171358
forum: Astronomy & Celestial

Hi, Dave... I've been using that site for quite a while. My backyard, where I take most of my photos, is in a bright red area equivalent to downtown Brisbane. It takes me about an hour just to get TO a yellow zone. And it's over three hours to a medium brown area - but once there, the visibility makes it worth the drive. I just have to try not to forget something important - like my camera, which I left on my son's dining table when I went up there with him the first time. ;( We used his point-and-shoot.

Now that it's warming up, I hope to get back out there again pretty soon.

Roy A. Rust wrote in post #17961394
Hi, Dave... I've been using that site for quite a while. My backyard, where I take most of my photos, is in a bright red area equivalent to downtown Brisbane. It takes me about an hour just to get TO a yellow zone. And it's over three hours to a medium brown area - but once there, the visibility makes it worth the drive. I just have to try not to forget something important - like my camera, which I left on my son's dining table when I went up there with him the first time. ;( We used his point-and-shoot.

Now that it's warming up, I hope to get back out there again pretty soon.

Hi Roy

yeah I hear you on that one likewise here, it's the pits


Dave

Where i shoot from its a back yard and in the dark brown zone so i guess not to bad?


P.

Pagman wrote in post #17964113
Where i shoot from its a back yard and in the dark brown zone so i guess not to bad?


P.

Talk about lucky. You apparently have readily available what most of us strive for, and drive hours to get to! The closest and only dark brown zone in Texas is in the Big Bend National Park - about 4 or 5 hours from here. There are quite a few medium brown areas in west Texas, but no dark browns. I'd love to see the Milky Way from your back yard.

Roy A. Rust wrote in post #17964287
Talk about lucky. You apparently have readily available what most of us strive for, and drive hours to get to! The closest and only dark brown zone in Texas is in the Big Bend National Park - about 4 or 5 hours from here. There are quite a few medium brown areas in west Texas, but no dark browns. I'd love to see the Milky Way from your back yard.

Am i working out the above chart correct going from very light - white/grey/red/light brown/dark brown/then yellow/greens and blues for very dark? i am in a dark brown area.

P.

Pagman wrote in post #17964302
Am i working out the above chart correct going from very light - white/grey/red/light brown/dark brown/then yellow/greens and blues for very dark? i am in a dark brown area.

P.

Semi-right, but you have the yellows, greens, and blues in the wrong order. Dave's capture of Dark Site Finder, above, should show you the scale of light to dark. The further from downtown Brisbane you get, the darker it gets (Except for isolated towns in the Outback that have lighter areas around them.). The brightest area in his capture is the bright red, and progressively gets darker as it moves from that area to the Outback, which is dark brown, and is the darkest zone I've found anywhere on the world map provided by DSF. Brighter zones show up in cities larger than Brisbane, like Dallas, Tx., which continue from the bright red indicated for downtown Brisbane, through light grey to white, as shown for downtown Dallas.

So, with you being in a dark brown area, you are in a place as dark as anywhere on Earth, except for a cave or thick forest!

EDIT - Apr 14, 2016
For Pagman, and anyone else having trouble relating DSF's legend to the maps, I found the perfect example to show the brightest area to the darkest... For some reason, DSF indicates a very bright area a little way off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, on the west coast of Africa. I couldn't see any island in DSF, so I checked on Google Earth, and still didn't find any source for a bright light. But it does make a perfect bulls-eye with the brightest area in the center, and the darkest area a bit inland. It just gets progressively darker as the zones get further from the center.

The Moon captured an hour ago.

Sony A7RII, Tamron 150-600mm + Sigma 1.4x TC, 840mm
Near 100% crop processed in ACR and PS CC.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FQn4​TE

Davenn wrote in post #17960924
G'day mate, greetings from the seriously light polluted Sydney
I can drive an hour from home and still not get out of the yellow zone

here's the Brisbane region for you from this site
http://darksitefinder.​com/maps/world.html

cheers
Dave

Hosted photo: posted by Davenn in
./showthread.php?p=179​60924&i=i22171358
forum: Astronomy & Celestial

That map brings back memories from my stargazing days (with a Meade ETX 125 UHTC, and an 8" dob). The situation isn't much better here in Toledo, OH, I think the best available locations within 3-4 hours of drive are still in the green zone.

gabebalazs wrote in post #17971114
The Moon captured an hour ago.

Sony A7RII, Tamron 150-600mm + Sigma 1.4x TC, 840mm
Near 100% crop processed in ACR and PS CC.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FQn4​TE Moon 4-13-16 Sony A7RII Tamron 150-600 840mm by gabebalazs, on Flickr

So that's effectively at 840mm? Great work! Aside from the obvious clarity concerns in a moon shot, what I really look for is an interesting terminator, and this image certainly has one. The way that the dark edge of the Sea of Serenity has a few peaks catching sunlight, creating that curvaceous lunar terminator is really beautiful to me.

Just a side note, an interesting terminator is something you obviously cannot achieve when shooting a full moon. While a full moon is beautiful in its own right, you also lose any shadows that would otherwise be cast by the craters themselves, creating something of a flat scene. Whereas in a photo like the one you have created here, you get interesting local contrasts as peaks catch light and valleys are in their shadows.

heldGaze wrote in post #17972448
So that's effectively at 840mm? Great work! Aside from the obvious clarity concerns in a moon shot, what I really look for is an interesting terminator, and this image certainly has one. The way that the dark edge of the Sea of Serenity has a few peaks catching sunlight, creating that curvaceous lunar terminator is really beautiful to me.

Just a side note, an interesting terminator is something you obviously cannot achieve when shooting a full moon. While a full moon is beautiful in its own right, you also lose any shadows that would otherwise be cast by the craters themselves, creating something of a flat scene. Whereas in a photo like the one you have created here, you get interesting local contrasts as peaks catch light and valleys are in their shadows.

Thank you.
You're right about the full moon. I don't think I ever photographed the full moon, maybe except during an eclipse. It's interesting how outside of these "specialist" moon/astronomy topics, so many people post the full moon (on Flickr, Facebook, etc.) and don't even bother taking photos of a half moon where you could actually see craters and mountains

gabebalazs wrote in post #17972570
It's interesting how outside of these "specialist" moon/astronomy topics, so many people post the full moon (on Flickr, Facebook, etc.) and don't even bother taking photos of a half moon where you could actually see craters and mountains

If you edit a full moon image correctly you can see all kinds if craters that you can't see with a half moon so to speak . Actually is the biggest misconception taken by all people who look at the moon . When we see supposedly a Full Moon your only seeing half the moon and that's the side that faces earth . When we supposedly see Half a Moon your actually only seeing a quarter moon because half you don't see on the back side and only half of the front side actually makes that a quarter moon . Now you can tell people who don't understand what an actual quarter moon really is .

http://apod.nasa.gov …FullMoon2012083​0smith.jpg

Celestron wrote in post #17972638
If you edit a full moon image correctly you can see all kinds if craters that you can't see with a half moon so to speak . Actually is the biggest misconception taken by all people who look at the moon . When we see supposedly a Full Moon your only seeing half the moon and that's the side that faces earth . When we supposedly see Half a Moon your actually only seeing a quarter moon because half you don't see on the back side and only half of the front side actually makes that a quarter moon . Now you can tell people who don't understand what an actual quarter moon really is .

http://apod.nasa.gov …FullMoon2012083​0smith.jpg

While there are two quarter moons(first and last) during each moon orbit, the original definition came from the position of the moon in its orbit. One quarter of the way and last quarter to completion.