abroad Kitt Peak Observatory

I'm so jealous, Pete. Wish there was a site like this around here.

G'day Michael! Nice to see you still around this site...

I find it kind of amusing that I have visited the Kitt Peak Observatory, a few years ago, but have not taken the trouble of going up to rural New South Wales and visit the Anglo Australian Observatory. You know, the one "made famous" by renowned astrophotographer David Malin.

Nice photo, Peter. That must be a busy place come nightfall. Wish I could set my little 5 foot dome up somewhere here. it's been sitting in my back yard for 20 years unused. Never got around to building a support for it. I recently gave my telescope to a nephew. At any rate, you caught some nice landscape here.

Well, Pete, some of us have little but simple backyard gear and look to your picture with envy, although one can say there is much an amateur can do even with homemade gear.

I thought for a second that these observatories were all cloned.

Bill, had I known about your unused dome, I might have put a bid in for it some years ago.

As it turned out, I have always been making the best of portable equipment, though the 10" Meade SCT on its equatorial fork has always tested my lifting capabilities.

I would recommend a visit to Kitt Peak to anyone who happened to be around the southern parts of Arizona. Even if you're only vaguely interested in observational astronomy, this is still an awe inspiring place.

Michael, I appreciate where you're coming from and your example of Bill Bradfield has not gone lost on me. In fact, we only recently had another aussie amateur in the news - Trevor Barry.

Doug, I wish I was that good with Photoshop... ;-)