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Re: (meteorobs) Florida Keys Night Skies: Darkest and best I have ever seen!

There is a little island at the end of  7,8?  mile bridge with a park called
veterans park on it. There are no lights on this little island, just the
park.
There are cars going by on highway 1 but late at night they are at a minimum.
If you hide behind this little building it shields most of the light.
I remember once bringing a friend there. He looked up and asked, "How can you
see the stars through all these clouds?" I replied "Those are stars!"

FELIX A MARTINEZ wrote:

> Both Norman W. McLeod and I can vouch for the 7.0 - 7.5 limiting
> magnitudes in the Lower Florida Keys as we observed there often in the
> late 1970's in early 1980's.  However  I am pleasantly surprised to hear
> that these type of skies are still available with the subtle growth &
> development experienced in the Florida Keys.  Then again with just U.S. 1
> linking a series of "islands," there is only so much growth & development
> that can take place.  Plus, I have traveled around the world to different
> places and even out in the middle of the ocean, I have not seen limiting
> magnitudes that surpass the ones I saw while observing in the Florida
> Keys.  Just thought you all should know that this is indeed a very
> realistic claim!
>                 In Astronomical Affinity - Felix A. Martinez
>
> * This morning (0054 EDT) I saw a beautiful Kappa Cygnid (0.0 magnitude
> and orange).  It was the first real nice KC that I have seen since August
> 1977. *
>
> On Sat, 18 Aug 2001 17:12:26 +0200 (MET DST)
> <peter.atanackov@guest.arnesdot si> writes:
> > > Lew,
> > > Are you serious? LM >7.5 and >7.0 in Moonlight??? Ok, maybe
> > > Long Key is a fine dark site, but I was observing 3km higher in
> > the
> > > atmosphere than you were at one of the better spots in the world,
> > > and my best LM was 6.7, dropping to 6.2 in moonlight. Given a few
> > > tenths extra atmospheric absorption at your sea level location and
> >
> > > higher humidity, that implies an equivalent LM~8.0 from Haleakala?
> > I'm not Lew, but I'd like to add my thoughts to this. Perhaps what's
> > missing here is a Bortle Class estimate. Remember, one man's LM 5.5
> > sky
> > can be another one's 6.3 (in our observing group the difference can
> > amount
> > to almost a full magnitude between certain observers!). Do you
> > regularly
> > see the Zodiacal band and the Gegenschein from Haleakala?
> > Also, Haleakala is 3000+m high. Perhaps oxygen deprivation is
> > already
> > playing a role here. I remember a similar comment from Marco
> > Langbroek -
> > when he observed from Mongolia in 1998 (Leonids) he couldn't get
> > past LM
> > 7.1, although the sky were perfectly dark (Marco correct me if I'm
> > talking
> > nonsense here...). Also, perhaps Lew's experience as a deep-sky
> > observer
> > has somehow 'altered' his response to faint stars?
> >
> > >
> > > Yet your SPO counts, are not much higher than mine, especially if
> > > you include Apex in them? Seems like a significant disparity here
> > > between perception of meteors and fixed stars. Maybe getting a bit
> >
> > > overenthusiastic after months under the bright orange skies of
> > > metro Boston??
> > Significant disparities between perception of meteors and fixed
> > stars do
> > occur. Take Norman for example, he *routinely* sees LM 7.3 from his
> > location, yet his sporadic counts are relatively low regarding the
> > LM.
> > As for getting overenthusiastic, I'm not speaking for Lew, but I
> > think a
> > good meteor observer, no, any observer, should not be biased by such
> > elements. I hope I'm not wrong.
> >
> > Clear skies and good LMs + high Spor counts! :)
> >
> > Jure A.
> >
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