I miss the stars

I love living in the city, but the thing that sucks here is the light pollution. I've complained about it before and I keep on debating on figuring out if there is a local push to get a bylaw passed to limit the light pollution. If they just make it for new fixtures or renos, I would think that eventually the problem would be fixed, or at least mitigated.

However, that's not a short term thing. I want to see the stars now. After watching a news story I found out there's a site called telescope.com that will will help you figure out what kind of telescope to get based on what you would like to look at. It had not even occurred to me that you'd get different designs based on what you want to see - I mean, don't they just all show you stuff that's farther away?

*sigh* I'm so ignorant.

So, that made me think. What part of the night sky do I want to see? What do I want to do with it? How much do I want to learn?

• The moon. I'd love to see more detail of the moon.
• The (local) planets. The rings of Saturn? Jupiter's moons? Yes, that's what I'd like to see
• I've love to see these things, but me being me, I'd love to take pictures of them as well.
• I'm lazy. Like, super lazy. So I think that if one day I actually bought a telescope, I'd like one of the ones where I say "Computer! Show me M42! Engage!" I think that I'd rather go out, do some quick setup, say "ooohhh!" and then go inside for some hot chocolate. I don't think that I want to spend 3 hours trying to find the moon. There is a reason why I still use "auto" on my dslr. :-/

So, what telescope should I order before Laura comes home? Nothing. The advice seems to be that I've got a long way to go before thinking about buying something.

But I do miss the stars.