Looking for best locations within 75 miles of Toronto to view Milky Way.?

Question

I am planning a road trip from Chicago to Toronto on the weekend of Sept 13th. During the trip I would like to go to an area to view the dark skies and hopefully get a view of the Milky Way. This will be my first experience of our sky/galaxy outside of the Planetarium. I am open to other suggested weekends after Sept 13th. In addition to suggestions, I am looking for other areas besides Binbrook Conservation. If anyone know of any observatory areas, clubs or events during Sept in Ontario area, please reply with the information. Thanks!

Answer 1

Pick a likely observatory from the Clear Dark Sky Clock.  Click on the Light Pollution Map link.  This should give you an idea which way to head.  It may help to have a street map of the area as well.

Answer 2

check with some of the southern ontario rasc folks.

Answer 3

If you cross the border at Detroit, you will find plenty of dark skies in the hills between London and Brantford. I am sure that you can find amateur astronomy clubs on line in that region, but I doubt that they will be out there on Sept 13. That happens to be a full moon weekend, and it will be so washed out with moonlight that it will be tough to see much of anything. The weekend before or the one two weeks after Sept 13 would be much better, and you will see more stars than you can possibly imagine. Good Luck and Clear Skies!    

Answer 4

The Moon will be very close to full that weekend, which makes it next to impossible to observe the Milky Way _anywhere_.

Take a look at this list of observing sites within 120 km of Toronto. You're interested in those 120 km or less away (75 miles):

http://cleardarksky.com/cgi-bin/find_cha...

The darkest site is Glenelg Observatory, a private observatory near Durham. There should be public property (conservation areas and such) nearby that you could access.