Craig. I don't think there's much you can do except go out in the country. This problem was highlighted only recently by the Royal Astronomical Society. It's caused mainly by unshrouded high powered street lighting which is also very inefficent & a complete waste of resources. Unfortunately, nobody in authority seems to take it seriously. This famous composite photo shows just how bad the situation is. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html

Blimey Craig...!
According to Hagars picture wev'e got to go to Alaska or Outer Mongolier to see the stars...!
I've got an 8X-25X Zoom telescope, so looking at the Moon (250,000 miles away), zoomed in at 25X magnification, it's only 10,000 miles away, like at the bottom of my garden...!!
As to the planets, most of them are too far away to see much detail, Saturn's rings can be seen only when facing us, and Venus, (which you can see in the sky every night), just looks bigger...LOL...!
..and what about the International Space Station, the brightest object in the sky, (apart from the Moon and Venus), every night!
The lights from Hereford wash out the sky to the East, but if I look Westwards towards Wales the sky is dark, (the Welsh only use candles)...LOL...!

Cheers mate..
Keep looking skywards, it's amazing what is "Out There"...LOL...!
Paul.
(Hereford).

thanks guys:)
i might go out and gaze a little later on tonight, its good clear sky but the sky is still a little to bright to have any luck,  the thing is winter is the best time for early light but the worst time for weather, as i discovered very few nights of clear skies and then its bloody freezing out there:)
the other thing is i am not going to pay out £300 for one of those super high powered telescopes, if i am going to get nothing better than the one i have now.  i might look into it though if i move to a place with good clear star filled skies.
it is nice to get out there though and just sit and stare into the sky.
and hagar we have alot of people round here who do have telescopes i believe, and they arnt watching the skies thats for sure:)

Quote:


My grandma told me about that. The "Midnight Sun" of the far north. I bought a telescope a while ago but the bright lights from the city obscure the view. I'm not sure where a good place to go in Europe or the British Isles for star gazing because it is so heavily populated. Perhaps if you're serious, you may want to travel to North America or someplace eles that's fairly lightly populated. You may want to visit Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or the US plain states. The flat level terrain is good for viewing because no trees or mountains block your line of site. Wish I could offer you some advice closer to home. Oh, try Switzerland, high in the mountains maybe, away from the lights of the big cities.

Craig, I have a 4 1/2" and an 8" telescope and am quite into the hobby, although I haven't had the oppurtunity for a while.  The key to viewing in the city is to be away from DIRECT lighting.  Go to a park or something where there are no street lights shining directly on you, no headlights, or store lights.  Ideally you should be about 1/4 mile from any direct lighting.  By getting a good star atlas, and learning polar alignment, you can find anything in the heavens whether you can see it or not.  I won't go into details about how, it's a long story.  Also, get a good set of light pollution filters.  They will actually cut down on the light and let you see at a higher resolution than without.

Also, look at your telescope.  I don't want to offend you, but Tasco is of a type known in astronomy circles as Trash Scopes.  That's not an insult to your intelligence for buying it; companies like that flood the market, especially around Christmas and well-meaning but uninformed family members will often buy these things based on the fact that they boast of great viewing power.  That is not how telescopes are judged.  They are judged by their light gathering capacity, not by how much they magnify.    Unfortunately, these people often buy these scopes, then failing to 'see' anything, they are relegated to the garage or an attic.  For instance, a good 90mm refractor from a company called TeleVue will can give more detail than my 8" Celestron.  Also, you should consider the TYPE of scope you are using.  A refractor (almost certainly what you have if you have a Tasco scope) is more suited for viewing planets than deep sky objects like nebulae or galaxies .   As for pricing, expect to spend about $400-600 for a decent beginners scope.

Most astronomy can actually be done with a quality viewing instrument most people already own; Binoculars.  A decent 7 X 50 set of Binos and a star map are all anyone needs to get started viewing.  You can resolve most of the Messier objects, planets and moons and even several galaxies.

If you desire to get a broader view of the hobby, visit a site like Astronomy.com and people will be just as willing to help there as they are here.

How can that picture have the entire planet at night???

Must not all have been taken at once

And i'm sure quite a few of those lights are because of all us flightsim nuts who are up at ungodly hours of the night either on the forums or flying

thanks guys, and thanks dread
the choice of telescope was very limited, my dad bought it for me for my birthday, and tascos were the only make avaliable in the area, the only choices were this one a £250 one and a £400, and since dont have that much money to spare i got the £80 one.
like i said if i end up in a place where its easier to view the stars then i definatly invest in a more expensive one

In Ontario, my best place was on the beach at Killbear- on Georgian Bay.........towel down, Ken down, eyes open......nothing but stars.....!
My father taught us this as kids....he had been a Chief Eng on oil tankers and knew all about the "no lights" thing from being out on the open seas.......

Now that I am out on the west coast......its only a matter of a 20 min drive into the mountains and pull over on a logging road.....no lights out there........just stars......