From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: December 8, 2010 9:39:14 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Calgary sky glow..

Hi Mark;

Calgary looks worse from a distance when overcast than up close on a clear night and most large cities have a pretty significant glow.  It being nearly nearly Christmas when that was taken,  all the Christmas lights are up and the city is covered with 14 to 18" of white snow, which bounces light back up.

I'm on the south tip of the city, so as long as the haze / clouds / humidity is low the sky glow isn't too bad. But I'd love to have a dark site to image from on a daily basis so I could go after faint fuzzies.

Last week night the CSK predicted some of the clearest darkest skies I had seen in months and I hoped to try imaging M74. However it didn't account for low hanging haze and the measured sky brightness was 36,000 for a 15 minute exposures, where on average it's in 17,000 range for 15 minute exposures. That's with an LPR filter too that cuts out about 220% of the bad light.

TTYL..

Milton J. Aupperle

On 8-Dec-10, at 1:22 AM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Milton,

I thought you might be interested in seeing this shot taken from the

hill to the east of Brian Allan`s farm (over 100 kms from you I believe)

I can see what you have to contend with, apart from the weather..!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2LdZcAgANC56VGW_VPJqOw?feat=directlink

Mark.