One night I was bored in my apartment and
decided to take my telescope out to the sidewalk. The moon was out, and I thought, why not? Within a few minutes people started
walking over and asking what this thing was. Hey what is that, Bro? It's a telescope. Oohhh! Do you wanna check out the moon? Do you want to take a look the moon? What is it? It's the moon! Where am I supposed to look? You're supposed to look right here. Oh, in there! [laughs] That's where it all started.
It just sort of went from there. I'm looking at the moon,
hold on real quick. Hold on. Oh my god... Oh... My... God... [laughter] [laughs] Oh my god! Oh my god... I can't believe it! Oh! Oh my god. Oh my god! No way. No way... No way, that's the moon? No way! Yeah way! [laughs] No! Woah, you can see the craters, yeah! Yeah... That is so cool! Oh, god damn! Get closer! Get closer and
closer and closer! It'll get wider! Wooahhhh!!!! What? Whaaat?! Whaaaaat? Look at the edge! I want... to see... more of it! Yeah, I know! I know! Holy s***! I've never seen this before! I've never seen this s***
before like this, man. Wowwww! That is... intense right there, boy. Wooo! Bro! That look like that's right
down the street, man! Man, what you got here, man? That looks
like that's right down the street. Yeah, isn't that amazing? It's right... Is that an actual image of the moon?
Is it like a live image? It's that right there. [gasps] To be able to see it up close, and feel like you could almost reach out and touch it, and that's what makes it real to us. That is incredible! I kind of felt like I just
landed on the moon. [laughter] It makes you realize that we are
all on a small little planet, and We all have the same reaction
to the universe we live in. Wowww... Woah... Ohhhh! Wow! Oh, wow! Wow! Yeah, wow... I think there's something special
about that. Something unifying. It's a great reminder that we
should look up more often.
How the Griffith Observatory came to be:
“Colonel Griffith J. Griffith left funds in his will to build a public observatory in Los Angeles because he believed in the transformative power of observation. After looking through the research telescope at Mt. Wilson he said: ‘If all mankind could look through that telescope, it would change the world!’”
I made this film with my buddy u/verydangerousasp. It definitely made me appreciate the power of space to bring people together. Thanks for watching!
Everyone should do this. The Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are always good.
I've seen this one before but what with everything that's going on with the lockdown, with the tension of the past few weeks and everything else... this time it made me tearful.
I will always remember when I showed the moon to my step grandfather. While he was amazed by the quality of the image, first thing he told me was ' The moon is reversed '. This old man who barely knew what he was doing 5 minutes before was the first and only that noticed it right away. RIP papy Louis
Man, I went to some...I think it was like an astronomy club (?) thing with a bunch of UCF students probably 7 or 8 years ago, and it was really something else. Different telescopes looking at different stuff, and all of it was mindblowing. Like, you see this stuff all the time in pictures and videos, but actually looking at it real time is crazy. I halfway regret how high I was, because I'm fairly certain I saw Jupiter in remarkable detail, but I wouldn't bet my lunch money on it now. Obviously being baked made the experience better as it was happening, but...
$200 gets you into the hobby. Check out /r/telescopes.
I take my kids to the town center with our telescope and they work for tips to show people Jupiter and Saturn during the season.
Last time we did it we were looking at Jupiter, and these are some of the things that happened:
1 - a woman came back after 15 minutes and explained that she was so touched that we were out sharing the view, because she works with really horrible people (her words) which gives her a dim view of humanity. She said she was nearly home when she decided to turn around and come back.
2 - a cop had been looking at Juno pictures and was happy to see some of the detail in person.
3 - a couple had been talking earlier in the week about Jupiter being visible and wishing they had a telescope to see it, and said we made their night by showing them.
4 - a family bought ice cream for us.
5 - lots of people asked if we were astrologers.
6 - every time a group of people came, the first one looked in and after a few seconds, said "Oh no way!" or something similar. Then the rest were suddenly more interested.
7 - some people were skeptical that they were actually looking at Jupiter because it can look like a sticker inside the telescope or something. That skepticism was alleviated when they watched the planet drift across the field of view due to the Earth's rotation.
It's a ton of fun. For the people that are wondering, $200 is the minimum cost to get into hobbyist telescope astronomy. Visit /r/telescopes for more info and to get pointed in the right direction, as there are a lot of junk telescopes out there.
Everybody loves astronomy. It’s ingrained in our DNA.
From the description of the video:
Telescope: Sky-Watcher 12" collapsible Dobsonian reflector (about $1250 USD)
Eyepiece: Televue 13mm Ethos (about $630 USD)