Astronomy is like a black art here! I've had some great observing sessions here in Valencia. Just wondering if anyone out there is into exploring the cosmos.
I would think the light pollution (even in Valencia) would make it rather difficult for this. I can only recall being in a few places that had absolutely no light pollution that allowed to me see the Milky Way in all of its glory...and every single one of those locations were in Afghanistan. Found a light pollution map that might help out. If you look at the US and Europe you will see that very few people are ever going to have a chance to see the Milky Way:
Very interested. Moved here about a year ago and I wanted to bring a BIG Celestron with me, but logistics and expense were too much. I would love to find a source here for purchasing a good telescope. We are up in the hills of Sibulan, very dark up here at night, but still I have to say that I am surprised there are so few stars out at night. I really was expecting a very starry sky, kind of disappointing at how few stars are visible at night here.
Looks like you need to be at least 30km away from Dumaguete and 10km away from any of the smaller towns to be able to escape the light pollution. Visibility is worsened by all the pollution coming out of tailpipes. I also believe I read somewhere that LED lights amplify the problem as they emit light of all colors and cannot be filtered out by telescopes.
From my terrace: It's really not bad here once your eyes are dark-adapted. Of course this is a long exposure, but there's no problem seeing star clusters and nebula thru binoculars or a scope. The sky is usually not this transparent because of the humid air, but the seeing is very steady. You can get great high magnification views of the Moon, Sun and planets. Again, from my terrace:
I had the same problem when I moved here. Only brought my small rich field scopes, binoculars and my PST solar scope. But they do the job. One nice feature here is being near the Equator, the ecliptic is very high in the sky. And the sky is steady. I can get better high power views of the Moon and planets here with my 90mm Mak than I could with my 254mm Dobsonian in the desert skies of Nevada and Arizona. You won't find a telescope store here! You would have to order one from overseas and pay the high shipping and customs fees. But I will be selling my Orion Short Tube 80 and tripod set-up. It's my travel scope, but I don't travel much these days.
Cool maps indeed! But it's really not that bad here. The biggest issues for me are the unshielded street lights and the outdoor lighting people seem to be in love with here. This is down the street from my house! But I can still see the Beehive Cluster! And, from the comfort of my home:
There are 2 advantages to observing here: 1. The Milky Way and Ecliptic are much higher in the sky than in mid-Northern latitudes. Less atmospheric distortion to look thru. 2. Even during the Summer, you have at least 9 hours of total darkness. Your eyes need to be dark adapted! You cannot go outside after staring at a laptop screen and expect to see lots of stars. You need to take a couple of beers outside, close your eyes until you've consumed the beers (approx 20min), then look up. If your consumption rate is faster like mine, bring 3 or 4 beers. I took the following image after 4 beers. This is the Northern Milky Way above my house at 2am. Altair is at the Zenith. The camera's image sensor is capturing stars down to +8.5 magnitude. Of course you can't see this with the naked eye. But a pair of 7x50 binoculars will show every star in this image! Very cool!
