With the nights drawing in, you have checked the weather and it looks clear and moonless but you are undecided if you should drive that hour or even 5 hours sometimes. Well if you dont go you'll never know!
Grab your keys and drive because dark sky's are absolutely worth that little bit of effort, yes its a paint o drive to them, yes you will be tiered on the way home but you will be accompanied by some fantastic memories from that night.
Over the years I have visited some of the darkest places in the UK with bortle 2 sky which have gave me some amazing views of our cosmos from visually seeing bright ha regions in distant galaxies, endless structure in the veil nebula and those hard to hunt NGC numbers.
In this blog I am going to share some of my locations which are very easy to get to and safe so you can have some amazing nights viewing some DSO'S.
With the nights drawing in, you have checked the weather and it looks clear and moonless but you are undecided if you should drive that hour or even 5 hours sometimes. Well if you dont go you'll never know!
One of my all time favourite places is Penmon point, located on the North westly side of Anglesey it is so easy to drive to and you can even wild camp there, so the drive home wont be as bad!
Map link : https://goo.gl/maps/ZJQ2Mkuz9JcVM4Rb7
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This image of the North American Nebula aka NAN was taken at penmon with just a camera and lens no telescope.
Next is a spot on the Llŷn Peninsula Porth Y Cychod
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This is a great remote location with no phone signal for that extra bit of peace, its also hard standing and ample parking. I recently had the pleasure of using the new 10 inch Celestron Starsense dob at this location and it was a fantastic few hours as you can probably see by the picture below its a good spot! (AUG 2022)
Anglesey has an abundant of little pockets of dark sky spots. Here is one on the south side of the Island with decent roads to it and a very short walk from the car if you fancy a bit of astrophotography.
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An image I took a few years before Covid hit, as you can see it has a great vista for the mikyway core.
Llyn y Dywarchen is located in the west of Snowdonia park and is surrounded by some beautiful mountains. I like this location due to it having so many compositions to experiment with and on a still night the lake will reflect the milky way.
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Below are a few images I've taken here, easy parking perfect for a one nighter in the van.
This next one is my go to when its 100% predicted clear sky. There is massive hard standing carpark with enough room for a few campervans. I have never been anywhere that's came close to offering views through a telescope than what this location can offer. Bare in mind that if its forecast wind then this is not the place to be.
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If you have the chance to visit these locations on a new moon then do so you will not be disappointed. The milky way shines like you've never seen, the sky is littered with so many stars that constellation's are hard to make out and DSO's so bright you can see them with your naked eye!