Did you read the OP?
I at least, had a Menard’s HO kit in my post.
It’s a good thing management has let the topic stray off course a little rather than locking the thread. It gives us a break from “should I model HO or N scale” or “DC vs DCC”
Just like any other thread, if the title doesn’t interest you, you don’t have to read it or comment on it.
My ISP has a screen saver that changes. REcently a large city at night was the picture. A generic big city at first, but then I recognized the Griffith Observatory in the foreground. So I knew it was Los Angeles. I did in fact think that Griffith would make a good subject to model. Something different and substantial on high ground. It is an attractive building. SO many observatories look like radar domes or other industrial buildings. Kinda like Union Station is a great old building to contrast the basic warehouse or grain elevator.
I watch the skies, know what planets are where, enjoy the aurora. Try modelling the aurora. I saw the thread title and half expected to see a new Lionel Telescope car.
I remember begging for a telescope as a kid an I eventually got one. I was space crazy and still to this day I read all about astrophysics and physics in general. Stephan Hawking in one of his books said want to see who the thinkers are in the crowd? Say something outrageous but true and see how people react, it points out the thinkers real fast. I must say I took that and ran with it.[:-,]
I carefully painted the stars accurately on the ceiling of both kids bedrooms when they were very young. You cannot see any evidence of the tiny dots of paint I applied until you turn the lights out. To this day they will tell you it is one of the best things about coming home.
I have dimmers in the trainroom and it is nice to have the Hudsons pulling my CP coaches in the dark with the lights on along with the other lights I am gradually installing around the layout. I still have the star paint and will be painting the night time view on the ceiling in the train room at some point.[:D]
My sons girlfriend just goes WOW! when the lights go out in his room. It is the stars she is talking about.[(-D]
I have edited the thread title somewhat, hopefully making my original intent a bit clearer. I definitely didn’t intend it to be confusing or deceptive.
My primary message was The model railroader who built a nice HO scale astronomical observatory on a mountain on his layout found an interesting way to combine two of his favorite hobbies. Somehow along the way, I got the wrong impression there were a number of MR’s who shared these two (seemingly unrelated) hobbies. As best I can recall it was a thread a while back in which people were bemoaning the high cost of model railroading, and several posters said their other hobby -amateur astronomy- was even worse. Maybe it was that “other” forum…
The reason it popped up in S&T was a December article about “Hobby Killer” telescopes, the plethora of poorly made junk telescopes that flood the market, especially around Christmas time. The author said they are so unusable and frustating that many would-be astronomers toss them in a closet and take up model railroading. I’ve invested a lot of time and money in both hobbies, I can say with honesty I’ve experienced plenty of frustration with each one.
Alan
Don’t worry about some critical comments. I thought your original title was fine for the subject, and I have enjoyed the discussion.
If someone doesn’t want to read a forum thread, it’s not that difficult to click out of it.
Thanks for starting an interesting topic.
Besides model railroading, I’ve had a long interest in astronomy too. As a kid I lived out in the high desert (The Mojave Desert) about 60 miles north of Los Angeles. I had a cheap 200X refractor telescope in the 60’s-70’s, but it was okay. Before the area started getting alot of light pollution, the night sky was usually quite dark, and we’d often see satelites travel across the night sky.
About 15 years ago, a friend and I backpacked out of Tuolomne Meadows (Yosemite National Park) about 7-9 miles to Nelson lake for a few nights. We were able to witness the Perseid Meteor Shower far from any lights and that was very cool.
Finally, one of the best night skies I’d ever seen was up in Northern California’s Trinity Alps. Very little light pollution, and very clear there too. I saw many stars and a few satelites at night while camped there. It might be cool to add a small observatory to a layout, or perhaps have a few astonomy hobbyists gathered together with their portable telescopes on someout of the way hillside.
Thanks for a great topic by the way,
Jeff
Not exactly model railroading and astronomy, but I did take a photo of a “total eclipse” on my layout a few years ago. (Real photo of a total eclipse positioned on the layout.)
John Longhurst, Winnipeg
That’s a really neat photo!
Either an eclipse or a black hole about to devour our Earth. I still have a Unitron calalog from 60 years ago, I always wanted the biggest one of course.