Main Page
City Deepsky Project
Welcome to the City Deepsky Project. This project started when I discovered that there were few, if any, lists of deep sky objects visible from inside the light polluted confines of the average city. So in May of 2005 I started this list on my blog over at evilscientist.ca, however it became too cumbersome for the blog format so a switch to the wiki format was in order. The advantage of this format is now others may also add to the project as well as noting if objects are visible from their cities.
That all being said, this list will give people who are new to astronomy a list of objects to hunt down and observe visually from their backyards. It will also be useful to more experienced observers who, like me, are sometimes just too lazy to drive out to a darker site.
Now there are obvious limitations to what can be observed from within a city. Light pollution tends to wash out most objects, and it would seem counter-intuitive that you can observe any deep sky objects at all. However there are many deep sky objects that can be observed from the comfort of one's own back yard. A couple of them are even visible to the unaided eye. That being said, some form of optical aid will likely be necessary to view most of the objects in the list. Note that this is a list of objects that can be seen by looking through a telescope with your eye and not by using CCD or film astrophotography.
So use this list to help you explore the cosmos from your back yard. As this is a wiki, you can help expand the list with objects that may be visible from your city and not mine, or confirm that an object that I or others have observed are observable from your city. To see the start of the original list you can click here. This wiki also contains general astronomy information, which you can use the Main index to click through. A list of current sky happenings is also available.
Signing up to add to the wiki
Due to the large amount of spammers setting up accounts, automatic account generation is currently disabled. If you'd like to sign up for an account you'll need to contact me via my blog at evilscientist.ca if you'd like to add observations or edit the Wiki.
