Beiträge von TakFan im Thema „AstroSpots.com - internationale Standortdatenbank“

  • AstroSpots.com - internationale Standortdatenbank

    Dear Peter,


    Maybe you could give us some personal background? Are you into astrophotography yourself or are you a web application developer?


    Where are you based?


    Reading this:


    "But still, we can educate less experienced fellow astronomer, they should reduce car lights when approaching the spot or even leave the car a few meters before the spot. That they should use red lights and not running laptops with full brightness etc.",


    it seems you are not doing astrophotography yourself. This is not how people behave out there.



    "astronomy is not like Football". Well, say I would recommend a decent observing spot within 50km range from the Ruhr area, you bet that there will be a crowd out there each good night, spoiling any astrophoto. Germany is densely populated.


    Say I would tell about a nice spot to two or three others, I might run into the risk, that one of them posts it in the app. Suddenly I would wonder where the increased number of people got to know about this spot. It would be spoiled forever.


    Well this sound selfish, I agree, but astrophotography locations are rare enough to be spoiled I'd say. An average place to experience the stars doesn't need an app. Just drive to the city limits.



    For education we have something marvelous already around. Observatories open to the public. All over the place. What more do you need? This should be the first contact for anybody interested into astronomy. They run presentations, public observations and they eagerly look for young, new members.



    Best regards,
    Dirk

  • AstroSpots.com - internationale Standortdatenbank

    Dear Peter,


    Your aim is of a good intention.


    Yet, there are typically two reasons why (non-public) observing sites are not posted in public. Burglary is the obvious one for fixed installations (and this is a real issue). For mobile sites, people are afraid of spoiling "their" spot since it may eventually turn into a hot spot with too many people showing up on clear nights.


    Requests for a recommendation of a good observing locations in area XYZ in forums is typically left unanswered for this very reason (apart from some well-known ones).


    An app guiding persons to a recommended location would be the opposite of what I would like to see - if it was my favorite spot.


    Just my 5c.


    CS
    Dirk