Astronomical Expedition to Tibet

[Max Flury]

Dear friends in Australia,

may we draw your kind attention to a rather unusual project but one whose time has come, we believe.

We are planning to take a 16 inch telescope to 15.000 ft in the highlands of Tibet.
The skies up there must be the among the best in the world.

Take a look :

http://www.freewebs.com/himalayanastronomy/index.htm

The gentleman who made the telescope for this project is the well-known optical designer Robert F. Royce.
His website is here :

R.F. Royce - Precision Optical Components

Best regards,

Max Flury

[Ric]

Looks and sounds fantastic Max, just a bit out of my price league at the moment.

[casstony]

It does look fantastic - travel to an alien world to observe alien worlds.

[dwyman]

Do you provide oxygen too?

[Max Flury]

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Don, we will be happy to keep a few bottles for you, sure.
And keep a few bottles of 'Tsingtao beer' cold if needed.

Seriously, its not that dramatic. Below 15,000 its manageable with a few precautions.

I wrote a post in 'cloudynights'
If you dont mind I will copy it below.

Best regards,

Max

[Max Flury]

A few words on this project, if I may .

How did this come about ?
Quite simply, every time I sat under the stars in those mountains I wished I could share this with more people.
Its not only what you can see through a telescope or binoculars, its the whole thing.Its being up there.
There are very few places on earth where you can get this close to the stars.All kinds of strange stuff happens at that altitude.Your sense of perspective gets completely thrown and needs recalibrating, its so clear that distant objects appear to be much closer than they are.
The stars reach right down to the horizon. The moon rises with hardly a glow,it suddenly pops up with an incredible brightness.You can see the earth move with the naked eye.
Its dark half an hour after sunset.
The Milky Way appears as a perfectly three dimensional object.I remember the first time I understood what I was looking at.Something in my visual cortex went click and there it was. The earth under my feet shrank to tiny proportions because the spatial relationship, the physical place of our planet within the galaxy had suddenly become clear.The penny dropped.
I read Al Naglers account today of how he had a similar experience at Ayers Rock in 1986. He went there to see Halley.There is something really special about places that offer extraordinary seeing conditions.Most of us live in an environment that is always unnaturally bright.We cant stop light pollution but we can get away from it.

I saw Halley in 86 from Sagar Island in the Bay of Bengal.
It was so big it was almost scary.
Now the naked eye views were fantastic but telescopic observation was not that great. Air is pretty dense stuff.
At 15.000 feet you have left more than three miles of the most dense layer of the atmosphere below you.If on top of that the air is also very dry like it is in Tibet you better have a telescope with you or there is no peace of mind for a stargazer.

It has bothered me for years and when I got in touch with Bob Royce he was so kind to hear me out and make a telescope available. Jakob Urban joined us and so this venture was born.
After going through all the practicalities we decided that we would try and see if we could get enough people for this year, very short notice but no harm in trying.
I wish we could offer this tour at a better price.The reality is that the logistics cost money and we don't want to cut any corners.

We had some very positive feedback,please get in touch with us whenever you like or leave your thoughts here if this venture has caught your imagination.

Thanks.

[mickoking]

G'day Max

Having seen the night sky From Everest base camp, Tibet, at an altitude of 5200m I can vouch for the quality and transparency of the skies. The sky was so dark and pristine you could barely make out the patten of bright constallations like Orion. I am sure I was seeing stars well past the 7th magnitude easily.

Oh by the way if you aclimatise slowly you probably don't need oxygen (I never used it and I'm a smoker) and the beer tastes fantastic on the roof of the world

Best of luck with your project,
Mick.

[astroron (Ron)]

Best of luck Max it sounds absolutely fabulous, I only wish I could afford to go.

[Max Flury]

Mick,
thanks, yes, exactly the same thing keeps happening to me up there. where the heck is Orion among all those stars ?

oh, there it is......

astronom,
I am sitting here with a calculator tossing things this way and that. I realize that I need to come up with a way to make this more affordable. I really want to.
Will keep you posted.

Cheers,

Max