Go Outside, Look Up

I don't think we do this enough.   Just go outside and look up (especially at night).

On this our first night of autumnal equinox, our first night of fall, the humidity is lower and it's quite comfortable out.  When I was a kid, we grew up on ten acres amidst a forestry in Indiana.  

The phone-quality for my 300 baud modem wasn't so hot but our night skies were pretty epic.  So epic, in fact many of my parent's friends swore to have had a number of 'close encounters' with other-worldly beings in flying frisbees.    It freaked me out a little but I also kinda realized they were on drugs.  So, there's that, too.

When we moved in Alabama, it isn't that our skies are all that different but our small subdivision had plenty of light pollution from the surrounding neighborhoods and near by football stadium.    Not the place to stargaze. 

(But, the modem speeds were faster! - a whopping 14,400kps if I disabled error correction.   (ATN0 on my USR Dual Standard modem - not the full 28,800 but a good speed, nonetheless)

We built a small house on 2 acres with significantly improved skies.   Then, a neighborhood came to occupy the 40 acre farmland across the street.   Some good folks moved in (at first) but the stargazing did diminish.

At our current place, the lots are about an Acre with plenty of trees.  To the South is a retail area, Bass Pro Shops and some Malls.  To the North, not much but other neighborhoods, lots of hills and plenty of Civil War history. So, as I go out on the back deck and look up, tonight, I'm happy to see what is pictured here.  A pretty decent night sky!

I can get by with Planetary imaging here.   For deep sky stuff, the objects need to be high in the sky and towards the North or I will need to go camping.

Which brings me to my question.  What's your favorite stargazing site?   Is it somewhere that won't mind the presence of my tent and telescopes this winter?