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Alqueva: Some Of The Darkest, Clearest Skies On Earth
Megoliths and star trails in the Alqueva Dark Sky Reserve in Portugal. Credit: © Miguel Claro
It’s a place with dark skies, clear nights and ancient astronomical megaliths. What more could you want in an astro-destination? The Great Lake Alqueva Dark Sky Reserve in Portugal is the first site in the world to receive the “Starlight Tourism Destination” certification and has good atmospheric conditions for stargazing for more than 250 nights of the year, as well as having special lodging just for astro-tourists. The services guests include late night meals and meals to go for stargazers, available telescopes and binoculars, and classes on astronomy and observing.
Astrophotographer Miguel Claro was tasked with having just two nights to take images of one region of this Dark Sky Reserve to help in the process of the dark sky validation, and he has sent Universe Today his stunning images. “They are representative of the Monsaraz region, one of the locations covered by the Dark Sky Reserve area and that had the best dark sky measures in the process of Starlight validation,” Claro told UT. “Even being so dark, and without the presence of the Moon to light up the landscape – at this time of the year without the major presence Milky Way – I had to use very high ISO´s, so there were some differences between heaven and Earth elements, avoiding overly dark images. But the sky was so dark, that we could find M33 with unaided eye.”
Enjoy several of Claro’s images below, as well as finding out more about this dark sky destination.
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Read the rest of Alqueva: Some of the Darkest, Clearest Skies on Earth (125 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Astro-destinations, Dark Skies
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