iapetus

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!

That's TOO cool! (Although I'll bet many people didn't take to kindly to being woken up ...)

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.

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!

bhatnasx

PM me your email address & I'll send you a photo I took of the sun rising over the cloud line while flying NRT-IAD on ANA - the cool thing about the shot is that I was able to get the moon in the same picture! It's one of my favorite photos - too bad it was taken with a crappy digital camera.

I recently was in Napa & saw a huge oversized moon around 9PM a few weeks ago, but for star-gazing, I love the town of Goshen, VA in the dead of summer - no city lights & stars for miles!

I actually carry a star map in my laptop case for when I travel to more remote areas where there is little light pollution - something to do at night!

EnergyFlyer

Actually, I got to see both the Cross and the Megallanic Clouds! (Had to get up at 3AM in order to see them, due to the time of the year!) They were really neat to see (two fuzzy patches in the sky.)

I can relate, as I grew up in NYC too and spent many nights as a kid trying to find my way around the stars. Even here in central MD, the sky is so much darker than what I grew up with in Queens. Things that I could never see there are in plain view here!

By the way, I like your FT handle, iapetus!

iapetus

Nice. And, I appreciate that you appreciated the experience. I think it's kind of a cerebral experience to understand that you're seeing, with your own two eyes, small galaxies that are orbiting our own Milky Way.

I learned the sky from a rooftop in Flushing!

My experience in Boulder, Colorado, was much the same as yours in central MD. I'm not sure how many people in Boulder realize that the Andromeda Galaxy is readily visible from there, too (everyone complains about the light pollution from Denver, Colorado).

But, now I live in Pasadena, California, and the skies are much more like what they were in Flushing. At least dark skies aren't far away.

Thanks! Sometimes I'm pleased with it; sometimes I think it's just really dorky. I'm OK with being dorky!

DanTravels

(bump) Some of my work sometimes puts me on Mauna Kea, and I also volunteer up there. Got plenty of stars to share with anyone who stops by.