Baan Maka Nature Lodge, a night sky full of stars

Starlight reflections taken from the Baan Maka lakeside pier

Situated in central Thailand's Petchaburi province, and nestled in between the Kaeng Krachan dam and the forest complex of Kaeng Krachan National Park is Baan Maka Nature Lodge, a popular international level lodging for nature lovers looking to explore the rich bio-diversity that Thailand has to offer.

However little is known about Baan Maka Nature Lodge as a dark sky observing site. With rural, Bortle 3 class dark skies, the skies are dark enough for the zodiacal light to be visible. The Milky Way arcs brightly overhead on clear evenings and from my estimates, I could see magnitude 6 stars overhead, nearly the faintest stars the naked eye can detect, a testament to the quality dark skies the lodge has to offer. A nearby town towards the south of the lodge produces a small light dome that stretches about 20 to 30 degrees above the horizon. 

The lodge has 14 rooms that tend to fill up quickly especially during the weekends, with an annual peak season between December to May. The rooms are basic but clean and very well furnished, there is hot water, wifi connectivity and ample electrical outlets. There is also a cafeteria on site that serves a decent selection of Thai and Western food and operates from about 5:30am to 9pm. Complimentary coffee and Milo are available for lodging guests throughout the day. 

During my visits to Baan Maka Nature Lodge, I surveyed the area and found that the area beside the lake and the farm area to be the best locations for astronomical observations and photography. The lakeside offers some beautiful albeit somewhat limited compositions for starscapes. Tall trees limit the view of the skies, on the other hand, the lake, on a calm evening, offers beautiful reflections of the stars.  Also, plan a visit during the early months of the wet season (May and June) to find a healthy population of fireflies that can add a mystical feel to our starscape images! 

Fireflies dancing among the reeds over the lake in Baan Maka

The farm area is prime area for deep sky and some starscape compositions. The farm area, especially near the gate from the main road, offers an almost unobstructed, 360X180 degree view of the entire night sky. As a result, the location is my favorite for photographing deep sky objects and meteor showers. Some grass reeds in the vicinity also offers a compositional tool for wider field images. The one downside could be the lack of nearby electrical outlets to power our imaging equipment, however an option does exist if we have an adequately long (50m) power cable, we could use electrical outlets from the nearby Tingky bar, an on-site mini snack and drink bar for guests to view the sunset and birds in the farm area. 

A composite of the Geminid meteor shower taken at the farm area of Baan Maka

One interesting point to note is that the North Star is easily visible from the farm area at just over 12 degrees above the horizon. This would make it easy for polar alignment and long exposure astrophotography using tracking mounts, I was able to easily polar align for a 2 minute exposure on a 300mm lens that gave me my best shots ever of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33). 

The Andromeda galaxy or M31, stacked 20 120s exposure images 

The Triangulum or Pinwheel galaxy M33, 20 120s images stacked 

The dark skies, convenience and safety Baan Maka has to offer makes the place one of the best for stargazers and astrophotographers. I have been returning consistently to take more astro-images and plan to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

A 3 panel mosaic of Orion, each panel consists of 5 120s exposures at 70mm

  Photography notes: Images were stacked using Astro Pixel Processor, mosaic assembled in PTGUI, post processing using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop

Website: http://baanmaka.com

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/BaanMaka.NatureLodge