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Comment by amoorthy | Hacker News Reader

Wow amazing! I've been itching to show my kids the Milky Way. I myself have only seen it once in New Zealand decades ago. What is the minimum dark sky rating to be able to see it with the naked eye?

I live in the Bay Area and I know there is Pigeon Point Lighthouse which is a dark sky spot but I think it's often cloudy. If anyone has better suggestions would be grateful to hear those.

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I don't think these maps take into account mountains.

There are rest stops on 280 (just south of 92) that (at least used to) host telescope parties: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vWEkH1bSvaUZKZHS8. You can definitely see the Milky Way from there, but remember it'll take 30 minutes to acclimate your eyes: tell your kids to stay off their phones (!). You're behind the San Andreas range to block out a lot of the peninsula light pollution, and you've got the coastal range holding back the fog (at least most of the time). Less moon is (much) better, and use a satellite tracker to have something else to watch out for.

World Atlas 2015 model accounts for elevation. So locations with higher elevation are darker. But it doesn't account for obstacles like a mountain range shielding you from a city behind it.

I'd suggest taking a road trip and go out to Panamint Springs outside of Death Valley. I forget if it was Zabriskie Point or Father Crowley Vista Point when I was there... but I felt that I could see all the stars that night. There was a distant glow to the east that was Vegas and another glow to the south west that was LA.

This also has an advantage that it's dry and so you don't get clouds as much.

Though, specifically for the Milky Way: https://darksitefinder.com/how-to-see-the-milky-way/

We stayed 2 nights at the hotel there in Panamint Springs back in December, and even right outside the cabins (and nowhere near a new moon) the Milky Way was clearly visible after letting your eyes adjust for a few minutes. This was in the parking lot where there’s no real attempt at avoiding nearby light pollution.

Davenport is a slightly better bet weather-wise than Pigeon Point, as due to the shape of the coastline and prevailing winds the clouds usually get swept past it. But it still gets cloudy from time to time there. Route 1 in general is a toss-up.

If you live in South Bay, the hands-down best place IMO is Pinnacles National Park. It's only 1.5 hours from San Jose, and easily daytrippable.

If you don't want to go that far, try anywhere along the Airline Highway, in the Paicines or Tres Pinos area (just get away from streetlights; for example, Panoche Road is a very, very dark road), Coyote Lake (shoreline is open for stargazing 24 hours; pay with machine at entrance), Henry Coe State Park, or anywhere along Mines Road but at least 15km southeast of Livermore.

Also, if you're going for Milky Way viewing, do make sure you know when and where the Milky Way is visible. The bright part and galactic core are only visible very late at night now, after 11pm or so, in the east direction. In mid-Summer the MW will be in the sky all night. In autumn the MW will be in the southwestern skies early at night and not visible late at night.

At other times, such as in winter, the outer parts of the Milky Way are in the sky, but you need much, much darker skies to make anything of it, and it's hard to see without long exposure photography. The winter side of the galaxy is actually really beautiful if you do a long enough exposure and all the signal processing necessary to get rid of noise.

I once got nice shots from Mt Tam. You can hardly see it, but with an ok camera doing long exposure you can get some nice pictures - even being so close to SF

Yea the blanket of fog over SF can actually help trap light and make the sky more visible. Watched a meteor shower from Tam once.

Based on https://astrobackyard.com/the-bortle-scale/ I'm guessing 3 or 2 to see it well.

When I was at the Grand Canyon, I saw the milky way right after the sun set and before the sky was fully dark.

I've also seen the milky way in West Virginia.

Bit of a trek but the panoche and tumey hills and other spots along the Western edge of the Central valley are dark and remote.

Lick Observatory

Not open to non-professionals after dark except for a handful of "Photo Nights" each summer. If you drive up there after dark, you'll get yelled at (at a minimum) or they'll call the cops on you for trespassing.

Mount Hamilton Road is available all year. Once you get above the cloud cover, the Milky Way is visible without an Observatory!

True enough, but headlights driving up the mountain cause light pollution for the astronomers working at the observatory (who necessarily need to work at night).

From https://www.ucolick.org/main/visit/info.html

"Please do not visit the observatory at night without a ticket to one of our evening programs.

Lick Observatory is an active research facility, and at night all of the buildings are locked and astronomers are working at the darkened telescopes. Telescopes require the darkest possible conditions to detect the faint light from celestial objects. The success of our work relies upon minimizing lights around the observatory at night. Thank you."

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