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Hey guys! I would like you to share you experience on best spots you have ever visited while astrophotographing  I will go first: I took that photo while travelling to the western Ukraine a few years ago. This photo is one my first ever taken |
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| The darkest place I have ever been to is the Arizona sky village, alas I only had brief clear spells as it was in the summer monsoon season but the sky was spectacular. A close second is the Mt Teide plateau on Tenerife above the clouds when a group of us went up on 5 nights to view Halley’s comet in 1986, many photos but all on film in those days 😊 |
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| Manua Kea (Visitor Center) in the 80's, a couple of locations high in the Western Alps in the late 90s and an island off the coast of Sardinia in 00's. I only imaged in the last location and it was brilliant. |
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| I wish we had super bortle 1 areas in California. But the closest to me is in the Mojave desert-a bortle 2 site. It's 2.5 hours away, but I love it there! |
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La Palma Island in Spain back in summer 2018, stargazing atop Roque de Los Muchachos which is about 2'300 m. high. Such a beautiful location and amazing sky! Would love to go there again ;-) Christophe |
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 The area around San Pedro de Atacama. I went there as a "YOLO" trip/bucket-list item after year-long battle with serious illness. Bortle 1-2 sky if you got a little bit away from the town itself. Visual impression of the Milky Way was not that far off from the single sub above. *quite* the difference with my B7 back yard in Ghent, Belgium or the B4-5 "dark site" I usually go to. Those were nights I will never forget. Stacked and (lightly - I was an absolute newbie) processed images here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/bennyc/collections/6407/ |
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The best location I ever went to was: I was an army cadet on an escape and evasion exercise in Germany. We were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and were expected to find our way back to safety. I was only about 14 years old, but we made our way through streams, mountains, fields etc. in pitch darkness. At one point we took a rest at probably 3 or 4 am and just lay on our backs in this field ... the sky was pitch black, the milky way was glorious and we were greeted by the most amazing display of a meteor shower. I'm now well into my 60s, but remember that night like it was yesterday. I think I might just go outside right now and lie down and look upwards ;) |
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Kennedy Meadows Tulare County CA rated Bortle 2, but measures theoretically dark most moonless nights. The summer Milky-Way is absolutely breath taking and casts shadows on the deck. Bortle 2 Rice Road Mojave Desert near Desert Center, Granite Mountains Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley several locations at Bortle 1. Barcroft and White Mountain research station 11K and 14K feet elevation in the early 70's, Glacier Point Yosemite late 60's and early 70's all were Bortle 1 at the time and before John Bortle's scale All sky camera images for summer and winter sky's a few years back. You can see Zodiacal light at both sunset and sunrise. http://hbastro.com/Milkyway/Summer.mp4 http://hbastro.com/Milkyway/Winter.mp4 |
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In 2017 I was lucky enough to spend the summer holidays in the countryside of central Tuscany in Italy (red pin on the map). I was amazed by the quality of the night sky and it turned out that by simple luck I was in one of the darkest areas of the entire Italy (according to World Atlas 2015 light pollution survey).  There I took my best and only pictures of the milky way so far. It turned out I was in a Bortle 4 location, which compared to my usual suburban sky in Manchester was absolutely breath taking! Milky way from southern Tuscany  The Plough with Arturus  Cassiopea, Andromeda and Double Cluster with the Northern Milky Way |
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Staniel Cay in the Bahamas. The MW looked like a cloud. You can't hardly make out Sagittarius as it blends into the star field. I could make out The Dark Horse knowing where to look. Here is 12 minutes of data from my Canon EOS Ra.  Milky Way from Staniel Cay Bahamas |
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For me, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. A bortle 1 sky, and classified as a Dark Sky Sanctuary. During the day, you are camping on lakes, rarely seeing other people outside of your group (especially if you portage in a few lakes from the entry points), and 0 technology outside of cookers and cameras (there was 0 cell service). The beauty of exploring the areas around you and seeing different wildlife, or if you're near one of the few waterfalls. I have amazing experiences and stories with these topics, but this post is about AP I started AP in May of this year, and in October I brought up my Skyguider Pro, TPO 180 and Camera to photograph the BWCA, which also, were moonless nights. It was an amazing experience, as many of you know, the Milkyway just stands out. And Andromeda, just begging to be photographed. The image below was one 60 second exposure at ISO 3200 during this trip.  Milkyway over Alton Lake MN We stayed on the southside of a peninsula located about halfway in the middle of the west bank of the lake  I cannot wait to go back in 2022!! -Chase |
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Capitan Gap in New Mexico was the best site I've visited, and it's not even close. It's every bit of Bortle 1 at 7500 ft. elevation. Being there on a moonless night is like standing in outer space. Visually, it blew the doors off my usual Bortle 2 sites in Texas. Staring at the zenith, I saw faint meteorites passing every few seconds, all night long. One night in June, I looked back toward Roswell and saw a white glow on the horizon that looked like an enormous fog bank rolling in, but Roswell is to the east, so it made no sense. It got slightly higher a few minutes later, and I started to curse a little. Then I realized that clouds are not white at a good dark site - they are dark. It was the Milky Way rising. It was so intensely white, sitting right on the horizon, that I did not even recognize it. The air was so clear that there was virtually no haze obscuring it. That was one of the most mind-blowing moments I've had in astronomy.  |
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| Ha ha ... I suddenly remembered another night. I was on holiday with my girlfriend in the Caribbean and we'd had a major argument. She kicked me out of the room and I ended up sitting on a rock at the end of a pier in Antigua. it was 1am and I spent a couple of hours looking up at the crystal clear sky and contemplating things. I ended up proposing to her the next day and have spent the past 30 years with her. That sky has a lot to answer for ... in a nice way of course. |
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Andy Wray: Oh, I has goosebumps for a moment, such a lovely story! |
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Michele Vonci: Wondeful! Glad that I've opened such topic, it's so captivating to see such works of art |
