Saturday, July 16, 2011

Looking for the Milky Way

Gary and I fulfilled a dream of mine by going to Galeton, PA to see the Milky Way. Yes the Milky Way is always there but only seen in certain areas of the world now. That is sad isn't it.
The Milky Way was not as brilliant as I would have liked however, I was able to view one of the most spectacular sights known to man. Two thirds of this country has light pollution, which precludes people from seeing the stars as we did as children, this I feel is very unfortunate. To lie on a blanket in your back yard during the summer looking up and counting stars should be every child’s rite of passage. There are places in the country that for whatever reason have escaped light pollution and Galeton is one of them. It was a landing strip in the 1940’s which is now used by amateur astronomers and stargazers.
“There are telescopes, guest lecturers, camaraderie, astronomy equipment vendors, and an evening of public stargazing.”
I did have a camera class at the "Dark Room" which was very taxing- it was very, very HOT prior to getting on the road for Cherry Spring Park!
Our trip to the landing site was as Brian says, "a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride". This area was way, way off the beaten path; we got way off roading- we ended at the end of a path. We went off the black top to a stone covered road to two dirt ruts with grass growing down the middle so we turned around and took the left that got us to our destination.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/07/skygazers-find-perfection-northern-pa

4 comments:

dontknow said...

I was thinking of going there after I read about it in the times. Sounds very interesting.

lafaymom said...

it was very starry, did you see the milky way at any of the state or national parks you visited

dontknow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dontknow said...

We were travelling at the height of the summer so we were never out late enough to see the stars. The sun sets very late here.