Telescope Viewing & City Lights

Video Transcript

"Here we are in front of the Seyfert Telescope at Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. And I want to talk to you a little bit about what you don't do with a telescope. One of the main calls we get at Dyer would be, "I want a telescope in order to see meteor showers". Well a telescope really won't help you for meteor showers. Actually the telescope that you need to use, the telescopes are right here, your eyes. The best way to observe a meteor shower is to find a dark field somewhere away from the city glow. In Nashville we have a city glow that extends out about fifty miles from city center. And it's ideal for a meteor shower if you get way, outside that glow and get to a dark sky site, in a field. Wear comfortable clothes, because a lot of the good meteor showers are in the winter and the fall. And take a blanket, lie down on the ground and look at as large a swaths of sky as you can. That's the best way to observe a meteor shower. And you may want to take your telescope with you in order to see the things, some of the objects that you'd see in between when you're looking for meteors. Now one of the other things that you need to consider if you're using a telescope in a city is that the faint objects, the galaxies, the dim star clusters are not going to be as visible from city because of the city glow. So, in cases like that, just with a meteor shower, you would need to get away from the city and go out to a state park. Or try to get fifty, a hundred miles away from any bright city lights, and you'll be able to see fainter objects."