Giovale Open Deck Observatory

Seeing the telescope that discovered the dwarf planet Pluto was an exhilarating experience. It is actually more of an instrument to take photos because that is exactly how it was used to find the tiny planet. If I wanted actual hands on experience, the Lowell Observatory also has that. There is the Giovale Open Deck Observatory. There is actually a rather large structure not too far from the Pluto Discovery Telescope Dome but I can see and hear that there are more people here. All the time I was here, the skies were cloudy, but it seems I was in luck. The skies were starting to clear and it is finally good enough for stargazing. If you want to stargaze, you need good telescopes. Fortunately, they have several here.

This open area had several large and modern telescopes which can see deep into the night sky. Some of the telescopes are hooked up to a computer and you can see photos of celestial object that are visible at this time. The staff was very knowledgeable and they are able to describe the telescope and what is currently being observed. You can see the even with powerful telescopes, the picture can be fuzzy, so they use a technique called stacking to put multiple photos on top of each other to get a clearer photo. The telescopes also track the object. Even if you can’t see the telescope move while it is focused on an object, it is actually constantly moving.

The telescopes are also well connected that they can connect to apps and it can point the telescope to the requested object. You better have that list of interesting objects ready. I was expecting to see photos of mere planets but I was stunned to see photos of globular clusters, galaxies and even nebulae. These are much further away and I was simply amazed to see them with my own eyes. There is still the more mundane looks of the moon. Fortunately for us, the moon isn’t too bright to ruin our stargazing.

I has always been my dream to own a nice telescope, however, it is simply not practical to own one where I live. You can probably count the number of days we have clear nights. This makes stargazing a hobby that is very difficult to do. I was very glad they have the open deck observatory. Although you can’t look through the Pluto Discovery Telescope, I think this is the next best thing. I doubt that it would be very interesting to look at Pluto with these telescopes. Fascinating yes, but ultimately it would just be a simply point of light. I truly enjoyed my visit to the Lowell Observatory. Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated by this field and to visit one of the famous observatories in the world is really a great experience.

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