The Plough facing north from the grounds of the Torridon Resort

I had a great time with hotel guests at the Torridon Resort this weekend, stargazing under Bortle 1 class dark skies. We were clouded out on Friday evening but had spectacular skies on the Saturday, with galaxies in particular brighter than I’ve seen them before.

The Torridon Resort was the base of operations for this luxury astronomy break.  It’s situated in one of the most remote extremities of the Western Highlands, well within the Bortle 1 and 2 classifications for darkness.

Stars appear at twilight, facing south from the grounds of the Torridon Resort

Our main excursions took us high above the hotel on the slopes overlooking loch Torridon, near Balgy.  On a previous scouting mission to find good observing locations I bumped into a nice chap called Nigel who owns self catering cottages in the vicinity, at ‘Baden Mhugaidh’.  He had kindly invited me to take the stargazing party onto his land over the weekend, and as we pulled the van up he joined us for some dark sky observing.

Although there were some thin clouds in the north and on the eastern horizon, overall sky quality and seeing was spectacular with the bright band of the Milky way on display overhead and vivid depth evident in the Cygnus region of the galaxy near Deneb and Vega.

Galaxies were popping with brilliant vibrancy in binocular views, with Andromeda showing bright lane detail and Bodes galaxy in Ursa Major clearer than I’ve ever seen it in field glasses.

We took in a tour of the main constellations, including the beautiful clusters in Perseus, the Pleiades and even some double stars, including Alberio which was easily split in the larger set of binoculars.

M82 and M83 in Ursa Major were the brightest I’ve seen them in binoculars.  They popped into view when scanning the star fields, like two nebulous lanterns

Good views were also possible back at the hotel grounds, and the staff kindly accommodated my request to kill the driveway lights a few times.  The hotel also let us commandeer the library for our meals, allowing me to present some power point talks during dinner on Friday and Saturday evening.  My guests were very friendly and interesting company, with questions and conversation flowing easily.

Unfortunately, I neglected to take my camera into the field, so only took a few snaps from the hotel grounds at sundown. Look out for more Torridon dates in the future.

The Torridon is situated under some of the darkest skies on earth.