Originally Posted by Kiwi Flyer
I'm sorry; I wasn't being terribly clear by what I meant by a "major" observatory. I'm thinking of the Mauna Kea-type, world class observatory. For instance, the largest telescope at Mt. John Observatory (thanks for the link!) is a 1.8-meter telescope. The
Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory outside Fort Davis, Texas, is a 9.2-meter telescope. Those numbers refer to the diameter of the objective mirror. And, what you care about is the area of the objective mirror. So, the HET has over 25 times the light-gathering power of the largest scope at Mt. John. It's not really in the same class. And, no slight whatsoever to Mt. John is intended!
Originally Posted by Citiboy45
One of my favorites was also Hale-Bopp on a red-eye. Was on a Delta flight from the west coast to ATL and the captain came on and said he was waking us up early because we were about to go into the clouds in a few minutes and he wanted to give us all a chance to take a look before he did that. It was really spectacular from up there and I really appreciated him doing that.
That's TOO cool! (Although I'll bet many people didn't take to kindly to being woken up ...)
Originally Posted by EnergyFlyer
Initially, it was hard for me to identify the major constellations, because the major stars couldn't stand out like they do in the typical US (or European) sky.
Well, that's also because many of those stars aren't visible from Europe or the United States. In f act, my unfamiliarity with the night sky would be at once really cool and really unsettling to me (to say nothing of the Sun being towards the north). If you were to bend over backwards and look towards the north, you might recognize some constellations. But, I've never tried this because I've never been further south than 20 degrees North latitude. People always report on whether they saw the Southern Cross. What I want to know is whether they saw the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds! That's what I'd like to see.
Originally Posted by EnergyFlyer
It is an unfortunate downside of our technology that we can't get to see the night sky they way our ancestors could from just about anywhere on the planet.
I completely agree with this sentiment. I'd just like to add, however, that I find it sad how many people also use it as an excuse to be unfamiliar with the skies. I learned the stars from beneath the light-polluted skies of New York City, New York! Granted, it's nowhere near as nice as from a good dark sky site, but people are often surprised at how much they can see, even from an urban site, when they only try.
Sorry for the very long post; obviously, this is a subject near and dear to my heart!