Telperion’s Flower

Friday morning on the way to work, I listened to an Astronomy Cast show on dark skies: areas far from cities where one can still see an amazing number of stars plastered across the sky. My own most amazing dark sky experience occurred on a 1am drive from Roanoke to Bluefield: it happened to be a perfectly clear winter night, and as I looked up through the windshield for a second, I saw more stars in the sky than I’d seen in my entire life. Darn near wrecked the car, I was so transported by the sight.

At any rate, last night on the way home from an errand, I saw a brilliant, clear moon hanging in the sky over the house. Suburban Chesapeake is far too bright for many other stars, but I suddenly decided that this would be the perfect night to assemble and set up my Galileoscope. It went together easily, though I’m not 100% sure I assembled the optional Galilean eyepiece properly. I’ve since found a PDF with more detailed instructions, but the basic setup worked well enough.

As the instructions mentioned, we had to find a tripod: this is no spyglass. But once we got it focused and aimed, the moon was gorgeous. Starr and Celia and Chris and I all took turns looking through the eyepiece – a little tricky because the moon was quite high in the sky – and initial complaints about the setup time vanished. Even this simple observation with a basic ‘scope made the evening memorable as hell. I think that soon we’ll have to find a dark sky and a cool night and set up the Tasco Novice that Starr gave me a couple of years ago. Awesome stuff!

And then we went in the house and played Star Munchkin.

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16 Comments

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • geckoman says:

    When I used to go out to do some serious skywatching, like a good meteor shower, I would take the night off from work and head up to the Eastern Shore. The 2001 Leonids were AWESOME! I must have seen hundreds and hundreds of meteors that night. Anyway, I think that North Carolina might be an even better place to go for dark skies because Route 17 is pretty darned flat and there’s huge stretches where there’s hardly any houses. Of course, being so close to the Great Dismal Swamp, I would definitely pack some bug spray.

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

  • madwriter says:

    I live in a Dark Sky area. And I don’t know why I still haven’t gotten myself a good telescope, or fixed the one I have so I can resume using the lovely eyepieces that Laurie gave me for Christmas a few years ago…

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