[ATM] competition

[Jay Kirkland <jaykirk2@compusmart.ab.ca>]

    That's truly horrifying but I so believe it. At least the part about 
clouds due to changing weather patterns. The way air travel is going, 
maybe we'll also have been the last generation to fly.
    Finished rebuilding my scopes in the summer of 2005. All of them - a 
6" f5 and 8" f6, a 12 1/2' f6, my 20" f5.7 as a tri., as well as all 
their finders, etc. It took me almost two years to rebuild them all. 
Spent this summer building 3 equatorial platforms. But who knew that the 
Cypress Hills Star Party in August 2004 would have been pretty much the 
last clear nights that Edmonton, Canada would see. Nearly 1 1/2 years 
after finishing the scopes, 2 1/2 years after Cypress, Edmonton has had 
no more than literally just a handful of clear, moonless nights. Haven't 
looked thru the 20" once. Treed-in urban dweller. Long drive to my dark 
sky site. Have had the little scopes out in the back yard a couple times 
to see how they work. Checked out Saturn with the  12" but the seeing 
was horrible.
    Two and a half years of cloud...
    We do have "clear" days. They have high thin cloud mostly. Sometimes 
the evening is clear but the clouds roll in as darkness comes. Sometimes 
it's solid clouds until they roll off at dawn. We had a pretty nice 
summer, but we're far enough north that we get a mid-summer perpetual 
twilight where for a nearly 6 weeks the night sky is so bright that the 
only stars you can see are as bright as the Summer Triangle and 
Arcturus. Not great for deep sky.
    It's not only suicidally depressing for observers, it's been just 
awful for gardens (co-inciding with a drought that's entered its 7th 
year), and I think it has to take some toll on the general population as 
well, even if the clouds are often just high and thin.
    I have started having a recurring dream: that I wake up in the 
middle of the night and that the sky is black and the stars are 
brilliant, like they were when I was a kid in the 60s, and I drag out a 
scope, and it's just a wonderful, wonderful... dream. But I realize just 
now that even that dream hasn't come back for a while. Sigh. I guess 
I've given up hope at all levels.
    So if you do have a dark sky full of stars, enjoy it. While you can. 
It may be that ground-based astronomy across the world could end in 40 
years. It may be that ground-based astronomy could end at an observatory 
near you much, much sooner than you'd ever believe.
     Jay
    7th circle of Hell, 3d house on the left
   
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