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Edge of the Universe

  • Jul 3
  • 3 min read
Milky Way core taken from our campsite at Crump Lake near Plush, Oregon
Milky Way core taken from our campsite at Crump Lake near Plush, Oregon

Day 14 and we are heading out from Spring Creek, Nevada to a remote region of the Earth about 330 miles away. Yes we actually do have an outback here in the US and it’s located in the State of Oregon! Encompassing 2.5 million acres, the Oregon Outback is a vast region of high desert in South Central and Southeastern Oregon.


The skies above the Outback are among the darkest in the world. According to the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute research, the site is within the largest contiguous Dark Sky Sanctuary in the lower 48 states of the US!


Route from Sprink Creek NV to Plush OR
Route from Sprink Creek NV to Plush OR

We headed to a region surrounding the town of Plush, Oregon. Originally we had intended to camp at the Hart Mountain wildlife refuge but it was a little bit of a climb with questionable roads for our RV, so we found a spot not far from there which was still part of the refuge but a little further south on Crump Lake.


Campsite at Crump Lake. Surprisingly there is a paved road there but over the 2 nights we stayed, only about 3 cars passed by and none at night
Campsite at Crump Lake. Surprisingly there is a paved road there but over the 2 nights we stayed, only about 3 cars passed by and none at night

It turned out to be a great spot! Completely unobstructed horizon view to the southeast. It was basically a pullout on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management which basically means public access).



This odd bird was chirping at me while we were setting up. Apparently it is called a “Killdeer” because the 2 syllable call sounds just like “kill” “deer”. Apparently it lays its eggs on the ground right on the rocks for camouflage and I suspect we were close to them! (I did confirm there were none immediately surrounding the RV!)


Sunrise at Crump Lake
Sunrise at Crump Lake

This was the foreground I used in the Milky Way shot. I crossed the road and set up right next to this creek.


This was the view to the West, opposite the lake. This side was obscured by the small ridge so I wanted to be sure we had an unobstructed horizon view to the Southeast for imaging.


Here was my setup for the 2 nights there. The mount and tripod next to the table and chair was for my small refractor and behind that is the setup used for the nightscape Milky Way shot.


And finally the 2 projects I did while we were there! This one is a standard Milky Way view from the Northern Hemisphere highlighting the galaxy’s core which is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius- left arrow. The right arrow points to the constellation Scorpio.


This image was a composite of the Milky Way and foreground. For the Milky Way I used a Canon R5 camera with a Sigma 14mm f/1.8 lens I stopped down to 2.0 with ISO of 3200. I used a Vixen Polarie star tracker for the Milky Way. The foreground was a single image I took about 1/2 hour after sunset. Settings there were f/4, ISO 500, 0.8 sec.



Of course I had to take advantage of the darkest sky I have ever seen! This is M22, a globular cluster that sits right in the Milky Way star cloud. Just a single 3 minute uncalibrated exposure with my FSQ 106N, Rainbow Astro mount and QHY 268C camera. I was able to accumulate about 3 hours worth of data in the 2 nights we were there, so we will see if that was enough to reveal the surrounding star cloud and dust.


So far this has to be one of the highlights of the trip! One of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have ever been to..and of course the darkest skies ever!


Thanks for reading...and watching!


DrDave


 
 
 

Comments

LP atlas.png

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.

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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.​

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Bortle.png

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.

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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!

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Bortle 2.png

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.

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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!

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Thanks for reading!

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DrDave

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