Salutations celestial sight seers David Fuller here from eyes on the sky
i know i've been away a while from youtube and i apologize for that there's been a number of things
that have been going on number one my wife and i bought a house we also purchased some property
which has taken quite a bit of time and i do want to talk to you a little bit more about that in a
moment and we've also had our my stepdaughter her daughter and our granddaughter move near to us and
they've required assistance and some time as well so eyes on the sky has had to be set off
to the side for a while for those reasons as well as me being somewhat burned out on it too uh it
sometimes becomes a lot of extra work and i didn't really have the time and sometimes motivation to
do that too so i apologize for that but i did want to update you on a few things that have been going
on one is uh one of those pieces of property that we purchased is right here behind me it's this
right here if you go about 100 feet this direction here and then about 130 feet or so that direction
it's about a third of an acre and you notice that we haven't really done a whole lot to that there's
a lot of dogwood and there is a space right here right that we did clear out a little bit and the
plan was is that we were going to use that for astrophotography and observing the night sky
because where this is located we're under bortle 4 skies so not perfectly dark but a whole lot better
than any city skies or even suburban skies we're in what's considered a rural transition area and
we really are rural around here there's not a whole lot around but there is still some
light pollution it's not very evident we do get a lot of milky way which is wonderful
to be able to finally see all that but in after we purchased that particular piece of property
not too long after that and we decided to purchase the house down here another piece of property
became available that was adjacent to this one so if you look out this way and not as far as where
all those wind turbines are at or even where that particular golf cart is driving but there's a line
of trees that goes down about 300 feet out that way and it goes another 400 feet or so down there
and then all the way down i do want to show you this too but then see where that shed is down here
that is also ours as well now these particular buildings and containers are not but that's the
edge of our where our properties at but this right here we cleared out and we will be using both this
and an area that's down this path right here for some meetup events where we plan to have people
actually come here to be able to see some dark skies and experience that
we bought a number of binoculars we bought a number of observing chairs and there's
a community center right here where we live too that we can have people uh come to and so we will
be doing some of the types of presentations indoors that help people understand
how to know what they're looking at up in the night sky and then we'll have them come down here
and down at these areas and look at the night sky and i want to note that this direction is facing
south and you'll notice there's no trees that way there's nothing blocking the view that way there's
only a couple of towns that are maybe i think they're a good 10 - 12 miles away the closest ones
so there's a couple little tiny light domes that you can see when it's dark but otherwise
it is almost black and when the milky way is coming down there in the summer
it's absolutely gorgeous and stunning it's truly amazing we have this little shed here that allows
us to hold some of our astronomy equipment as well as things for taking care of the land
like you know a tractor and things like that but this is really a cool spot and we hope to
be able to have you come here and join with us to see some of this this is not just going to be
an astronomy destination for people we hope to restore this particular piece of land a good
portion of it to natural prairie so a lot of this already is fairly natural for the area prairie
type plants but there's a lot more that we can do we need to take out some of the ones that are here
though some things will need to do with some of the trees but the idea is that this will really be
a place where you could get away from it and it's so quiet here you will be able to just
get away from life both day and night because at night you'll be able to see all those stars when
it's clear and during the day there's not much to hear except occasionally you might
see way off in the distance over there over my shoulder there is a farm which they have sheep
and chickens and goats the cows are not over here but they do have cows too but
so occasionally we get coyotes at night which is always interesting to hear them but they don't
come here when there are people here although they do come through here got some trail cameras which
makes it interesting to see when the coyotes are coming through but that is what we plan to do with
this particular piece of property that we are really excited to both have and share with people
we've got our first event coming up on december 4th we plan to have more when the moon and the
skies obviously allow for it but that is what we are trying to accomplish so the last thing that i
want to let you know is that i have been working on my astrophotography skills because one thing i
learned about astrophotography is that unlike visual observing where you need to bundle up
and you know you're outside for hours in the cold or whatever or you know trying to keep mosquitoes
at bay once you set up your equipment and start the camera you can go back inside and just wait
so that's what i've been doing and here's a couple examples of me having done that i've
been able to improve somewhat finally figured out a few things like how to uh get good focus and get
tracking and and all that kind of stuff so i plan to share those things with you in the months ahead
uh because i know people have asked me about astrophotography there's a lot of really good
astrophotography resources out there but you know what they share and what i share
everyone does a little differently everyone has a little bit different perspective to
share so i hope i can share a perspective that's a little bit unique and different and
builds on some of what they've done but also uh maybe advances some things in directions that
they have not done just because that's not the equipment that they've had or how their
experience has been with doing astrophotography so i don't think there's any there's not it's
not really a competition it's more a matter of hey here's how we're all doing it but this is
definitely an exciting opportunity for us we hope that you will be able to share with us
with us if you happen to be in the chicago area and we have a meet up event or if you're going
to be visiting here and want to join us for one of those we don't have the meetups
entirely set out in advance at the moment we're really just kind of
feeling our way forward because the land is still new and we don't have a whole lot
of things set up for it yet but we have done a little bit and really just
want to be able to show people how a dark sky looks so that we can get some people thinking
about how we can move towards less of the light that they use at night
see that it's not necessarily scary being in the dark
and then when you do need light you can use light that lights up what you need with the amount of
light that's necessary and no more than that and so that we can start making an impact with
light pollution in a positive direction so that we get more people with skies that are darker
they may not have what we have here but if we can improve our skies and by improving the ones that
people have under urban and suburban areas so much the better everyone's gonna see more stars where
they are and then they can come see even more here so that's what's happening and i hope you
will forgive me for being gone for a while but i also hope you understand why i did and what
we have planned going forward and how we look to make use of that and include you and part of that
in person occasionally um and if not then we'll do it through youtube as we have in the past for the
past 10 plus years and thanks so much for watching if you are not a subscriber i hope you will
consider hitting that subscribe button and joining us in this journey as we continue forward with
all the cool things that we look to share with everyone who watches thanks so much