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Ruby's View

Ruby's View

Ruby's View

Campsite with Ruby Mountains in the distance About day 13 of the Odyssey we were headed from Great Basin to Sprink Creek Nevada on our way to the Oregon Outback. We will occasionally make use of the Harvest Host camping network. Harvest Hosts is a unique RV camping membership where self-contained RVers are invited to visit and stay overnight at wineries, farms, breweries, museums, and other unique attractions. You pay a yearly membership fee, currently under $200 US, and you

Jun 292 min read

Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 4, Starry Nights

Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 4, Starry Nights

Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 4, Starry Nights

NGC 7023- the Iris Nebula The night sky did not disappoint! Great Basin is one of the Dark Sky Sanctuaries in the US as discussed in Part 1 We had 3 of 4 clear nights. As I also mentioned earlier, the Milky was a little obscured to the south due to the terrain so I chose a target in the northern section. The above image was taken with the equipment shown below. This is a single 5 minute exposure, raw image uncalibrated. Unfortunately my ability to fully process astronomical i

Jun 263 min read

Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 3, Baker Creek

Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 3, Baker Creek

Remote Sanctuary of Darkness- Part 3, Baker Creek

Baker Creek In the last chapter we set out to search for the source of the rushing water sound. It didn't take very long to find it! You had to fight through a moderate amount of brush, some thornbushes and low hanging tree branches, but it was basically about a 5 minute hike from the campsite. The creek was amazingly vibrant and crystal clear for its' size. It was about 10 foot wide on average and not very deep, maybe a foot or so. Now supposedly there were fish in there but

Jun 202 min read

The Bortle dark-sky scale (usually referred to as simply the Bortle scale) is a nine-level numeric scale that measures the night sky's brightness of a particular location. It characterizes the observability of celestial objects, taking into account the interference caused by light pollution. Amateur astronomer John E. Bortle created the scale and published it in the February 2001 edition of Sky & Telescope magazine to help skywatchers evaluate and compare the darkness of night-sky observing sites.

The above Light Pollution Atlas was compiled in 2024. It is obvious that most of the US is dominated by fairly severe light pollution! Only a few areas in the western 1/3 of the country have what can be considered a dark sky. It is a sobering fact that the dark night is a dwindling natural resource.

What is dark? This image courtesy of ESO/P. Horálek, M. Wallner shows the appearance of the Milky Way under the various Bortle sky scale values. The overwhelming majority of the world's population will never see anything darker than around Bortle 7.

This is a color coded Bortle map of the region surrounding my remote observatory in Pie Town, New Mexico. The '+' is the actual location so there we are at Bortle 1-2, pretty dark!

This is a detailed color-coded description of each Bortle scale value courtesy of ClearDarkSky.com, which is a popular resource for astronomers. It provides local Bortle maps for hundreds of observing sites in North America.

So what is the take home message here? The Bortle Sky Classification or Scale is a useful resource to identify the darkest observing sites. ClearDarkSky.com can be used to find many of them, but even a general search using tools such as AI should be able to tell you how dark any campsite is in the world! The dark night sky is a dwindling natural resource and we are not sure how long the remaining areas that are accessible currently will stay dark. My advice is not to wait. Go out there and experience it while you can!

Thanks for reading!

DrDave

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