Les Granges - 2010

If you are reading this wondering what Les Granges is, the best description (I can come up with) is, it's the perfect getaway for any astronomer, cosy accommodation, great company, outstanding equipment and most importantly exceptionally dark skies.

Located 3 hours north of Marseilles is the small village (when I say village, I mean just a few houses!) of Etoile St Cyrice. At 900m, the last building in the village belongs to Olly Penrice and is hidden behind a rise in the mountainous terrain - which is important as it shields the area from the very minimal light pollution (8 shielded sodium streetlights) from the village. It's a remote location (usually comes with dark skies), ideal for soaking up some sun, enjoying the peace and quiet and stunning scenery. If you don't mind an hour and a bit drive we enjoyed a tour of the Observatoire de Haute-Provence. There's a large collection of astro magazines and books to keep you occupied as well as local wildlife to gawp at. We were there in July and saw wild boar, deer, many birds and butterflies from just outside the farmhouse. 

Les Granges, the foremost building on the left and
surrounding area

One of the resident deer

 Olly has top class kit and experience to satisfy expert imagers and long time visual observers as well as complete beginners. There are 3 permanent roll back shed type set-ups, housing a TEC140 Apo, Takahashi FSQ85 and a 20" dobsonian. The refractors are both mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 Pros and when combined with either of the Atik 4000 cameras (mono or OSC) Olly provides, they produce really high quality results.

Olly imaging during daylight (not really :) just a full moon)

The weather gets a little extreme in summer

When imaging, the limiting factor for exposure length will certainly not be the sky. Tracking errors or camera noise will limit long before the sky, it is simply awesome!

I'll just finally say... We will definitely be going back!

(Astro pics from Les Granges soon...)