RE: [APML] US Amateur Observatory locations???

["Chris Schur" <cschur@cybertrails.com>]

Kent, Ive observed up there quite frequently and the sky glow from flagstaff
is  now getting pretty bad.  A better place would be between Flag and the
Grand Canyon or between Flag and Payson.

Chris Schur

Astrophotography: http://www.psiaz.com/schur/astro/index.html


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-astro-photo@seds.org [mailto:owner-astro-photo@seds.org]On
Behalf Of William R. Mattil
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 1:49 PM
To: astro-photo@seds.org
Subject: Re: [APML] US Amateur Observatory locations???


KGKIRKLEY@aol.com wrote:
>
> Hello To All:
>
> I'm curious about Flagstaff, Arizona as a place to relocate to and build
an
> observatory. However, there seems to be very little obvious interest in
> Flagstaff in the amateur astronomy community, why? There seem to be
amateur
> astronomy communities popping up in other places like Cloudcroft, New
Mexico
> and Ft. Davis, Texas and perhaps others, but Flagstaff is never mentioned.
>
> Any comments?
>

Hi Kent,

While I have no first hand experience with imaging in the Flagstaff area
there is a rather interesting article in the latest Sky and Telescope
about Percival Lowell and some of his "observations" from his
observatory there in Flagstaff. The short of it is that certain (named
in the text) professional Astronomers didn't like Flagstaff due to:

One side of Flagstaff is facing broken country and hot desert while the
other is a vast forest of pines. To the north lie the San Francisco
peaks, some 12,000 feet high and they have snow on them almost year
round. Barnard stated that the diversity of the terrain was likely to
create turbulance.

Douglass was credited with stating "Of all the places I tried in Arizona
in '94 Flagstaff is next to worse".

Interesting article. But the gist of it is that Flagstaff just generally
doesn't support good seeing. Similar to the Front Range of the Rockies
methinks.

Besides .... <very big grin> Cloudcroft is far closer, higher, and
better seeing.

Best Regards

Bill

PS: No Schmidt Camera yet .... sheesh.

--
William R. Mattil	| Fred Astaire wasn't so great.
wrmattil@ix.netcom.com	| Ginger had to do it all backwards
(972) 399-4106		| and... in high heels.

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