September 17, 2008 - Observatory - Dan Krill's BLOG on BinaryBedlam

Observatory
September 17, 2008 08:18:58 PM

     I finally got around to doing something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I thought I completely lost the oportunity when we moved Khine out of Charlottesville, but thanks to her resourcefulness, we were given another chance! So Friday evening we went to an actual observatory. There was one at UVa, but like I said, we never got around to going. The one here is called the Dyer Observatory and it belongs to Vanderbilt. It's quite far from the campus in Nashville, which is why I never thought Vandy had one, but the location is pretty necessary due to all the light pollution near the city. This place is on a tall hill top in the middle of the woods in Brentwood, a very nice location.
     I tell you what, nothing brings out your inner scientist like a visit to an observatory. I mean for me, it was like a kid in a candy store! There were tables set up with models of the ISS, mars rovers, rocket prototypes, and no shortage of experts there talking about the stuff. There are 3 telescopes, 2 smaller refracting telescopes, and one big catadioptric telescope. The 2 smaller ones were aimed at Jupiter and the moon. The larger one was aimed at a binary star system (I can't remember which one).
     I have to admit, when Khine first suggested this event for Friday night, at first I was actually reluctant to accept. I thought it would probably turn out to be a tiny old place run by some grad students who couldn't care less. But I was all wrong, It was well maintained and there were plenty of older knowledable very friendly staff.
     Oh yeah, later in the evening, when the people started thinning out a bit, I got to see them rotate the dome and aim the largest scope at the moon. OMG it was freaken nuts! The magnification was so intense that you couldnt even see the moon's curvature! Every little crater, valley, shadow, and detail so brilliant, so crisp. If only the moonlanding site faced Earth, I feel like this thing would be able to see all the stuff we left there. Good times!

Here are some pics from the Observatory:

DATE: September 17, 2008 10:56:18 PM NAME: DK
COMMENT: Yeah, it doesn't seem to matter how big the telescope is, stars always look like little dots. The only diff is now you could see that it was actually 2 dots, not one. We'll get my telescope set up sometime, don't think there's any good place at this apt complex to do it though, too many lights. And that first picture, notice it's the only one I didn't water mark.

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