After a long hiatus from observing due to work, weather and moving I finally got an opportunity to do a little observing from my new back yard last night
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Our new house is in a slightly darker area. Definitely not dark sky, but the real improvement is the lack of tress obstructing my views. Now I can observe in nearly every direction!
Ground lighting doesn’t seem to be an issue at all either. The developer of the neighborhood did a great job with the street lights. They are completely shielded so that light only shines down and you have to be standing next to see the actual bulbs. My neighbors have been playing nice as well and keep their back yards about as dark as mine.
So for my first backyard session I couldn’t resist diving into Virgo to explore some galaxies with my Z12. Transparency turned out to suck as the bugs were horrible so I didn’t bother with notes and didn’t stay out very long either. It was more of a testing the waters session so I am just going to give y’all the list of what I spotted.
I started at Vindemiatrix and hoped over the
The bugs were absolutely horrid and since I haven’t located in what box I packed the bug spray I cut this session short after a few targets.
The new back yard is definitely not a replacement for traveling to a dark site, but I am definitely a happier camper with the new views that I has to offer, This is going to make future casual back yard observing much more rewarding so I am pretty happy! Looking toward to getting back out soon!
Anyhow, thanks for reading
Craig