Thankfully not every location has to be as dark as the Atacama desert to enjoy celestial observations. My backyard, under Dutch skies and with an SQM value that hovers around 20, provides plenty of space (pun intended) to observe with my 12" SCT.

While faint objects drown in the light pollution and often suboptimal atmospheric transparency, literally thousands of objects remain within reach. The majority of these objects are double stars. Also, carbon stars, star clusters, bright and/or stellar planetary nebulae and bright galaxies can be targeted effectively. Although objects do not reveal as much detail compared to observations from dark locations under much better skies, it is a lot of fun.

For double star observations I compile observing guides using data from the Washington Double Star catalog.

For backyard deep sky observations I mostly use CSOG's 5-6" edition. This means that only the brighter objects make it into my backyard observing plans.

From the third week of May until the third week of July, astronomical twilight does not end at my location at 51° 39' North. This does not really hamper my observations as, due to the light pollution, it effectively will not get any darker once the sun is approximately 15° below the horizon.

2021

2020