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Originally Posted by Cube Inmate
Cow... can I come out and use your back yard to do some telescopic viewing? I'll bring beer! It bloody sucks living in the lit-up city  .
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I have a pretty crappy telescope that a misguided friend gave us for Christmas (spending several hundreds of dollars!!) which I sometimes train on the heavens . . . . . had Saturn in the viewfinder last year, clear separation of the planet and rings and some detail in the rings.
Mostly, I get out the swell binoculars we have and lay on the grass, a couple of Golden's by my side, and stare up at Jupiter and its moons while listening to the coyotes howling, the elk squealing . . . .
We're behind a hill from Calgary, so light pollution is pretty miniscule, the Milky Way glorious. We're on a southwest facing hill with a vast horizon stretching to infinity. You can pretty much see anything.
A few years ago, Mrs. Cowperson and I were cocooned in parkas, laying on the deck furniture, all the lights out, the pitch black of a country night, watching a pretty heavy Leonid Meteor shower with the coyotes howling from four points on the compass, the farm dogs and our dogs joining in . . . . . and we saw nine satellites or so in about half an hour as well as hordes of meteors. That was fun.
So . . . . no, you can't come and share.
Cowperson