An astrology lover in Portland? (Dallas: camps, live, move)

[BornJuju]

How's Portland for a lover of astronomy? I would imagine that consistent cloud coverage would block most starry night skies (if the light pollution didn't already). There's all kinds of awesome stuff going on in the sky - is it possible to see it in Portland?

[asubram3]

I assume you mean astronomy, not astrology as in your thread name. I am also a lover of astronomy, and was hoping to do more sky-watching after my move (in a few days). Here in Dallas you are lucky to see more than 5 stars in the sky (light pollution).

[BornJuju]

Hah, yes, that is what I meant. Thanks. I can't find the edit button, though. Alas!

Light pollution in Knoxville is pretty bad, too. But just 20 minutes outside the city and it's truly beautiful to see the universe glimmering above you. I'm not naive enough to believe that any major city won't have absurd amounts of light pollution. While it'd be nice to be able to just look up, I'm not opposed to driving out of the city a bit for meteor showers and the like.

But the more I got to thinking about it, I'd imagine all the cloud cover could put a real damper on witnessing heavenly events!

[Squidlo]

There is quite a bit of light pollution in Portland. For naked eye star gazing I tended to go either east into the gorge or west to the foothills of the coast range. The cloud cover doesn't help much either. The summer evenings are usually cloud free and worth a trip out to see the stars. Until last year I was in San Antonio and lived just west of Sea World the sky from my back yard was amazing. It was just odd to not have to drive to get that view.

[Rob Allen]

I have friends with telescopes; they have great fun when the weather's clear. And they go to www.oregonstarparty.org every summer.

[Minervah]

I went to a star party once that I believe OMSI sponsored. You might want to check them out to see if they have anything like that available this summer. I don't think you are going to see anything in the city itself.

[Squidlo]

Originally Posted by Rob Allen

I have friends with telescopes; they have great fun when the weather's clear. And they go to www.oregonstarparty.org every summer.

If you are willing to drive that far... Check out Hell's Canyon. Several camp grounds the along the Snake river. Down the the canyon looking up into the sky you can see satellites flying over with the naked eye. For me the best camp ground is on the Idaho side furthest north before the dam. The camps are operated by Idaho power. The camp I mentioned has hot showers and great tent spaces. (cheap too)

http://www.idahopower.com/pdfs/ourEn...ochure2010.pdf

[JBPisgah]

In addition to lots of clouds and lights, Oregon has lots of desert and vast unpopulated nothing. In these places, the stars will blow your mind.

[hamellr]

There is a pretty hardcore group of astronomy buffs who meet up on Larch Mountain. Especially during big celestial events. I don't know the group name unfortunately, just have seen them up there several times.