The Humble Homepage of Christopher Erickson

Astronomy in Alaska

Thinking of moving to Alaska?  Are you an avid amateur astronomer?   Do you find yourself
outside every clear and moonless night?  Then don't come to Alaska.  Astronomy sucks up
here.  Between bitter-cold winters, midnight sun in the summers, 250 cloudy days a year in
Anchorage, the sun never getting very far below the horizon, many Messier objects never
coming above the horizon, Alaska being Jet Stream Central and those damn Northern Lights
puking light pollution everywhere, 95% of my good viewing comes when I travel somewhere
South with my little Orion 80ED refractor on a Vixen GP mount with Meade Autostar GOTO
control in a big Pelican travel case.  98% of my astronomy fix comes from Sky & Telescope
and Astronomy magazines and the Internet.

My Meade LX200-16" and my 10" f3.8 Newtonian reflector on a Losmandy G-11 mount sit
around and gather dust.  Periodically they are hapless victims of various machining projects.

My astronomy archives

Join me in the Yahoo discussion group AlaskanAstronomy
Join me in the Yahoo discussion group RoboScope
Join me in the Yahoo discussion group MeadeDS
Join me in the Yahoo discussion group NewtonianReflector