After flying around with my SS analog (Chromius) in the test island for an hour looking at the stars longingly, I realized that I haven't seen an astronomical observatory in the game yet. And yeah, with the light pollution terrestrial observation is dead. It's been moved off-world to clearer skies.
Back in my college days, I ran the planetarium for two semesters and had full access to the telescope. Mount Lemmon used to be one of my favorite day trips
when I lived in Tuscon. My head is still in the stars.
So, where is the observatory? I expect that any fully developed/ old city would have one along with a fully developed physics program from the old university. And, there may be some esoteric off-shoots, you know, the wackos who were dismissed by their peers who maybe 'too advanced for their time', the alien conspiracists, the 'real' aliens who are trying to keep it a big secret, the ones who built up a religion around such things, etc.
I think that it should be in an area that was light-deprived and low humidity when it was built. Top of a mountain and well away from the city.
I'll leave that for you for now.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a Mogul building or Landmark with an observatory on the roof?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I believe you're correct, Huckleberry. Also, there may be some more public displays at the Library in Alexandria.
Be Well!
Fireheart
There is a planetarium at the Vande Vere Museum of Technology. That facility is located in a pretty well-lit part of the city and is mostly envisioned as a museum for learning and entertainment. There are areas of town that will have much less light pollution. As we build out in those areas I think it would be great to include a more focused research observatory like the one Kalideus is suggesting located in one of those areas...
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
Are there any tall hills or mountains around Titan City? Google shows several Observatories near Boston, which might highlight useful sites.
Since I'm aware that TC topography is analogous to that region.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I am not sure how tall some of the hills might be, but there are very large, open park areas that I think could house an observatory very well. I’m thinking of Rhineheart Park, but there might be other areas as well…
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
I can think of a couple nice hills off on secluded McTester Island
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Tell me if you can spot the higher elevations and places where terrain will tend to block direct line of sight to the city lights below.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Harvard definitely has an observatory on top of one of its buildings, so it’s entirely logical there would be a similar one at one of the universities in Titan City. Past the mid-20th century, though, observatories in cities and near coasts stopped being very useful.
When I was in college, I worked at the observatory at Washington University in St. Louis, which was no longer used for research, though a decade or so earlier I think it was doing some photometry still. In the early 1900s it maintained the time standard for Central Time, and had an amazingly accurate grandfather clock with terminals on the side to send out time “ticks” over telegraph lines. There was a transit scope there which was used for setting the clock, though the scope was no longer functional when I was there.
Note that observatories are best placed on top of buildings or hilltops, since that decreases the amount of aur turbulence around them, and improves the “seeing”.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team [/color]
Truthfully, I wonder when we'll get around to building an observatory on the far side of the moon, to block out all EM interference from Earth.
It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.
[color=#ff0000]Business Director[/color]
That'll never happen. That side of the moon is already too crowded with secret bases and alien staging areas.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Considering that the far side of the moon is just about the only place in the inner solar system where ultra low frequency radio astronomy facilities can even be constructed, that won't have results "contaminated" by radio emissions from Earth ... it's pretty important to NOT muck up that bit of precious real estate before we start using it to do some really amazing radio astronomy work.
There's plenty of places on the near side of the moon (and the poles) for habitation and industrial exploitation.
Leave the far side of the moon as pristine as possible for Great Observatories.
By the way, building a replacement for Aricebo on one of the limbs of the near side of the Moon (in a crater, of course) would be absolutely incredible, since the Moon rotates so much more slowly than the Earth (29.5 days instead of 1 day) and would thus have much greater "range" for radar astronomy (active radio, not just merely passive). One of Aricebo's limitations was that it had a limit of about 10 AU for radar astronomy due to the time delay between emit and return signal received due to the rotation of planet Earth and the maximum "slew" angle of the radar beam that Aricebo could transmit and receive as the planet rotated. Beyond about 10 AU, the signal took "too long" to travel (uphill, both ways!) to and from Aricebo to be received by the facility due to planetary rotation ... but the Moon doesn't rotate as fast, so a facility built in a crater on the Moon would have a longer radar range for a "static" facility built into a crater.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
And, of course, all current observatory technologies are limited by the speed of light.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Although it's been postulated that Gravity is instantaneous.
As long as any eventual Moon base looks (and sounds) like this it'll be fine. If not I'll be mildly disgruntled...
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P.S. And I thought I had too much time on my hands...
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CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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