Re: best location as an amateur

From: Stephen Paul (spaul219_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/16/04 

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:01:33 -0500

"Jon Isaacs" <jonisaacs@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041116143411.21841.00000623@mb-m14.aol.com...
> >What more could I ask?
>>
>
> Reasonable housing prices???
>

Reasonable is a 2000 square foot home for a family of four, with a 2 car
garage, all on an acre for 25% of your family gross income. As long as that
can be achieved, I'd be happy anywhwere that has mag 5.5 or better skies.

I wouldn't be happy living anywhere that the sky is completely washed out
for naked eye astronomy (I'd rather commute from work to home for up to 75
minutes). I'm not out there every night. I just want to be able to afford
that level of living, and see stars in the night sky with the naked eye. The
more the better.

A telescope isn't a requirement for me to enjoy astronomy. Increasingly so,
I return to my roots of naked eye star gazing. Ultimately, I would know all
of the Messier object locations to within the 4 degree field of a fast 100mm
achromat (or apo should wealth bless me). All of which are easily visible in
that aperture under a true mag 5.5 sky.