Moon Gloom

Does it make any sense to drive out to a dark sky site, and try to do any landscape/milky way wide-angle imaging with 21% moon in the sky?

Of course, it will set by 11PM, but I will be snoozing by then ...

R.

I think so. The moon can come in handy for illuminating the landscape at night, as long as it's not a full moon. Anything between last and first quarter should be ok to capture some of the structure of the Milky Way.

I tend to light paint significant foreground objects, and use the milky way as an enticing background. So, a "darkish" landscape is not necessarily a bad thing.

I wonder if there is some way to calculate or estimate the impact of moonlight on sky conditions ... ???

Oh well, I would settle for someone to drive ...

R.

The milky way is only going to be up at 4-5 am ish. so youre going to have to get up really early.

In my location, Stellarium says it is up all night (southwestern AZ).

RickColman said:

Does it make any sense to drive out to a dark sky site, and try to do any landscape/milky way wide-angle imaging with 21% moon in the sky?

Of course, it will set by 11PM, but I will be snoozing by then ...

R.

Click to expand...

This image was acquired with a 20% moon at a dark site:



The moon definitely added unwanted signal and that added more noise. However, it was still significantly less light pollution than I get in my back yard. That's ultimately what matters for me in the long run.

The Milky Way has different parts. Right now during the early evening and night the outer arms of the MW are up. Those set between 1-2am, then the core of the MW rises a little after 2am. You'll see Scorpius first as Orion is setting, at which point the only part of the MW that is really above the horizon is the part that loops up over the north pole, then the core will rise along with Cygnus, etc.

The core of the MW is the more interesting and much brighter part. To see that, and see it decently high in the sky, you will want to start at around 3:30-4am.