Best places around Galway City

Hi All,

I'm new here, so first of all I want to say hello. And secondly to ask a few short question:

Does anyone know best places for astrophoto/observing around Galway City, and best time to do it in this area? During what period of time is here the lowest cloud cover? I hope that there are such, a bit longer, periods of time BTW is anyone here who is observing from Galway?

Lots of thanks,
Piotr

I used to live near Ballybrit Crescent over the past few years, and I found that the rear carparks in the Parkmore East business park had very good horizons to the south and the east, with no light domes of significance in the direction. There were places around the extremities of the park grounds that had earthen banks up, that provided good light shields from the carpark lights. Observing to the west was compromised though by the rest of Galway city. It's also on the bus route as well

Given that the area is within the approach path for Galway Airport, a lot of the local lighting is fairly well set up.

The guys from the Galway Astro Soc would know better for local places that are good.

Hi cathalferris, thanks At the time I'm trying various places in the western part of the city.

As for the observing in Galway area, generally, could you tell how many observing nights had you here approximately? 5 percent per year? More or less? By 'observing nights' I mean nights without clouds and with good clarity. I'm asking about it cause I wonder if it's worth to invest in better equipment Since the beginning of the year I noticed just 5 or 6 clear nights, in this perhaps only four of them with completely clear skies.

I got a few reasonable nights of viewing. I'd have to go back and check records, but I was getting about one good night a fortnight, but I wasn't taking much account of broken cloud. I wasn't in Galway every night of the week as my girlfriend was in Limerick so I spent a few evenings a week down there.

Number of spectacular moonless clear and non-hazy nights with good seeing, maybe 3 a year?
Number of reasonable nights with possibilities for looking at something - that's be probably around the 30-40 a year, but some of those would definitely be snatches of view through sucker holes in the cloud cover..

Local knowledge would be better though. galwayastronomyclub.ie

- Cathal.

Hey Piotr,

Anywhere around Barna is pretty good and dark. I used to bring the telescope up near the Barna Golf club and the skies were much darker there. If you're stuck in the city limits try Southpark, down by the Claddagh. Also some of the beaches down that direction are decent observing spots as well.
Not many perfect nights in Galway I'm afraid. I'd estimate along with Cathal for that - maybe around five with no moon and good transparency and probably about 30 nights per year that have reasonable gaps in the clouds - makes it hard for photography though
Trev

Thanks Cathal, Trev

I just wondered if Barna area would be good place for observing, eg near Barna Woods (are playing fields lighted at night?) or Silver Strand (eg top of the 'cliff' in the western part of the beach). Another question is: are these places safe during evenings/night? Finally the equipment is usually 'a little bit' worth

P.