One of the main missions of observatories and university astronomy departments, besides peeking — or listening — deep into the outer corners of space, is public outreach. Many of them have a very cool resource that could be extremely helpful to amateur astronomers who are getting up on two wheels going around a learning curve. It’s an “Ask an Astronomer” blog where you can ask questions about planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, quasars, almost anything astronomy related.
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Outreach is big at observatories. This is the Rebecca Gale Public Telescope Park at the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas, Austin. Feast your eyeballs on some big tubes, one has a wheel chair accessible eye-piece and there are pads everywhere to set up telescopes. |
They’re probably not going to be able to help much on equipment questions, but maybe, and it’s always a good idea to check the question archives so you aren’t asking a question that’s already been asked and answered a gazillion times. But if something up there is baffling you, check out these sites:
McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, TX
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM
Cornell University Astronomy Department, Ithaca, NY
Lick Observatory, Hamilton, CA
University of California, Berkley, CA