cannot see the milky way in dublin?

[gttjohn]

i have been to the mountains and been to the beach lots of times looking up at the sky away from the city lights ,but i have never seen the milky way .i have seen lots of amazing pictures of it on the net from other places around the world .Then is it only possible to see it at certain times of the year or certain latitudes ,thanks for reading

[Borek]

Light pollution and air pollution make it hard to see. Best places are high in mountains, far from any cities. I have seen it in many places in Poland, so if you will be able to find a good place in Ireland, as it is a similar latitude, you should be able to see it as well.

[AlephZero]

In the UK the night sky never gets dark enough to get a really good view in May June or July. You should be able to see it on cloudless moonless nights for the rest of the year, but you need to wait several hours after sunset (or before sunrise) to get a really dark sky.

FWIW the best view I have seen was from an island off the west coast of Scotland, at abut midnight in September, so your latitude is certainly not a problem.

[Antiphon]

It's not a stand-out sight in any event. If you're older you may have to use your near-peripheral vision to see it. If you're young it should be easy to spot directly.

[Bobbywhy]

You can try to use images from this website to locate areas near you with less man-made light:

http://www.darksky.org/

[Borek]

You can try to use images from this website to locate areas near you with less man-made light:

Can you point us to the exact page showing European skies?

[Bobbywhy]

http://www.darksky.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=719#Astronomy
Europe is on Page 5, Fiqure 4

Also, this site works well and I recommend it:
http://www.nightearth.com/
Here you can easily zoom in on your area. Be sure to select “Hide Markers” for a clear view.

[Borek]

Got it, you meant Night Sky Brightness Atlas. Which links to www.lightpollution.it/dmsp/, which links to

http://www.lightpollution.it/download/euromini.jpg

Up to OP now to locate Dublin on the map.

[gttjohn]

thank you very much all for the replies and links very helpful indeed it seems i live in the centre of a very light polluted area but if i travel west should help me ,now planning a camping trip !

[davenn]

It's not a stand-out sight in any event. If you're older you may have to use your near-peripheral vision to see it. If you're young it should be easy to spot directly.

you have got to be joking ? what part of the world are you in ?

maybe you need to move to the Southern Hemisphere ;) where the milky way is stunning from a dark sky site

cheers
Dave

[Bobbywhy]

I lived in Amazonia for 9 years. On moonless nights we could walk across the savanna with ONLY the light from the heavenly stars, including the the Milky Way, to light up our path. Talk about "stand out"! It is brilliant under those (dark) conditions!

[dimensionless]

There is probably too much of an overcast. Many more stars are visible in the desert.

[Drakkith]

There is probably too much of an overcast. Many more stars are visible in the desert.

Not overcast, just light pollution.

[Borek]

Not overcast, just light pollution.

I would say both - air in large cities is always full of aerosols, they obscure the visibility and make a perfect nucleation sites for water vapor. In effect they disperse the light from the ground, making effects of the light pollution much worse.

Perhaps technically this is not an overcast (as that means sky is completely invisible), but kind of a fog?

[Drakkith]

Perhaps technically this is not an overcast (as that means sky is completely invisible), but kind of a fog?

I would not classify it as overcast. To me it means it's cloudy. But to each his own I suppose.

[russ_watters]

Astronomy forecasts consider cloud cover and transparency to be completely separate issues, though obviously a cloud covered sky will be opaque: www.cleardarksky.com