Astroblog: The Biggest Obstacle to Astronomy after Clouds

Monday, June 14, 2010

The Biggest Obstacle to Astronomy after Clouds

Is Fondue. Chez Reynella headed up into the hills on the long weekend for dinner and bushwalking with friends. Clear skies beckoned, so I packed the portable telescope, the big binoculars and the binocular-tripod adapter.

And used none of them.

I had visions of showing the kids and sadults Saturn and some of the delights of clear skies. But we had a fondue night so we all sat around the fondue pot dipping bread into cheese, then dipping fruit into chocolate (at this stage the burner went berserk, as you can see in the image, made dipping a bit ... interesting). Enjoying food slowly while having good conversation.

In the end, after we had washed up and everyone else had gone to bed, I went out and had a look at sparking night skies. I got a shot of the star clouds of Sagittarius and Scorpius (3 x 10 sec images at 1600 ASA stacked in ImageJ, click to embiggen) and the clusters near the Southern Cross.

In the end, the biggest obstacle to astronomy is good food eaten with joy with good friends.