Astronomy in China?

[chrisp9au]

Returned last week from a 2 week concert tour of China, and despite looking every evening I managed to see just 3 stars for the whole trip! Being in the northern hemisphere I had hoped to see some long missed constellations.
The single view of those 3 stars, Vega, Deneb and Altair, was in the east/central city of Xuzhou at about 10pm after a concert in a magnificent concert hall set on a lake. We had 2 days in Qingdao on the east coast but the air was pretty awful, and no stars. Hard to tell if there was cloud or not!
Makes one wonder how anyone there can do any astronomy with the pollution as it is.
I would imagine others have had similar experiences?
Cheers
Chris

[dannat]

yes Chris in Seoul Sth Korea could only make out saturn & the moon

[chrisp9au]

Yeah, we could make out that the moon was there over the last few days of the trip, just a dim outline most of the time.

[gary]

Hi Chris,

I first went to China on one of the very first inaugural Sydney to Beijing
flights in 1985.

In those days, cities such as Beijing had millions of bicycles, only
a small number of taxis, a few government cars and a
reasonable number of public busses. There was no high-rise except for
a small number of Beijing hotels.

Long before the incredible industrial transformation, the silence was
only broken by the tinkling of thousands of bicycle bells.

But even then, the skies in cities such as Beijing and Qingdao were
usually dull and hazy. The dust haze from the Gobi desert and cooking
using fire places resulted in a lot of particulate matter in the air well
before the wheels of industry began to turn.

So decade by decade, it has only become worse. The cities in the
east aren't exactly an amateur astronomy haven.

[PCH]

Slightly off track Chris, but what was your concert tour for?

[chrisp9au]

Paul, it was a tour by the Melbourne Bach Choir http://www.mbc.asn.au/
5 concerts with excellent soloists, Kerry Gill, Belinda Paterson, Henry Choo and Andrew Jones. Performed in Qindao, Jinan, Taian, Xuzhou and Shanghai.
The last concert was in the brand new Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall where the acoustic was almost perfect, fabulous experience! :thumbsup:
Chris

[GrahamL]

I joined one of those global outreach programs many years back which linked those who signed up with a bit of a ping on a map from other countries and surprisingly I think I got two from China.

http://www.astronomy2012.org/dct/page/65601

[PCH]

Thanks for that Chris, - it sounds like a fabulous experience, thanks for sharing.

[MattT]

Similar experiences….yep…. I went on a 3 week tour of Singapore Korea China and Hong Kong way back in 1996 with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the main memory is bicycles, pollution and food poising! Spent time in a few of the cities you mentioned. The first McDonalds had just opened in Beijing too.
Stars…I don't remember seeing anything at all, but the beer and local eateries in China were pretty good! Lots of memories mostly involving people.
Matt

[cometcatcher]

Take a look at today's APOD. I can see how LP is a "bit" of a problem.

[julianh72]

Did you mean this one?
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141011.html

Having been to China and witnessed the air pollution and light pollution first-hand, I can imagine that there are very few amateur astronomers in the major cities, but this photo shows it's not entirely impossible!

[chrisp9au]

If you're into just looking at the moon, yes.
But this is a time lapse of the moon, not a single star trail!