Beaufort South Carolina Amateur Astronomers Webpage

Updated July 2, 2009

Greetings! Greetings! Fellow Astronomers!

Beaufort, South Carolina

Latitude: 32.404673

32° 24' 16" N

32 degrees, 24 minutes, 16 seconds North

Longitude: -80.653104

80° 39' 11" W

80 degrees, 39 minutes, 11 seconds West

Beaufort Amateur Astronomer is a FREE information web site concerning Amateur Astronomy around the area. Amateur Astronomy is my hobby. All links are open FREE information to anyone that has an interest in Astronomy.

Please check back once in a while as the web page is always changing! Please let me know of any links that do not work. And any mispellings! Thanks!

Astronomy Year is April 2009! We celebrate 400 years since Galileo charted the night sky with a very simple telescope! Back to the moon and LCROSS is functioning tests ok! We look forward to October for the impact of the rocket on the moon surface, it may be visible through 10 inch mirror reflector telescopes.

Clear skies!

I have a few star maps and some Astromomy and Sky and Telescope magazines to give away FREE. Email me. Thanks

Click here to Email Beaufort South Carolina Amateur Astronomer

NEW LINK JULY 2 2009 Listen to the sound of Jupiter from NASA here

We amateur astronomers are very limited in Beaufort with safe and light pollution free stargazing areas.

Be careful out there, do not go alone and avoid isolated viewing areas such as the County boat ramps,City school yards and Beaufort City and County Parks. Public information is suppressed here from the public and most people are unaware how dangerous after dark Beaufort County/City really is.

Broad River fishing pier is isolated and has too much dew early evenings.

Safer areas for Astronomers night viewing are right in your own yard or neighbors yard here in Beaufort,Waterfront park but be careful there also.

This Amateur Astronomer is trying to have a spot somewhere in the area that is safe for Astronomers to set up their telescopes and have safe surroundings.

I attended the public hearings on the Park proposal for the old South Side Beaufort Jasper water treatment center that has been donated to the City/County many years ago and attempted to include an Astronomers safe area for viewing.

I also encouraged establishing a public Observatory and Planetarium as a quiet positive type of use for the park and one that would pay for itself through an Astronomy gift shop.

It is many years later and no park has been built there. What a waste of a beautiful gift of land!

I have over the years given Light pollution information flyers,starmaps info to City/County Council public officials, emailed them about the light pollution problem with poor lighting fixtures here in Beaufort and have never heard a word back from any of them! Let's hope they were all real busy with other stuff and will get to the light pollution problem soon!

Some local spots to view the sky are the Cross Creek shopping malls parking lots and the Piggly Wiggly parking lots in Port Royal and Boundary Street stores and the Roses Plaza parking lot.

Now these are well lighted and are best used for wide open sky viewing.

No need for telescopes. These are good for Space Station and Shuttle overpasses. When they launch uprange from Florida I have seen the flyover at the Port Royal Piggly Wiggly parking lot.

My yard has viewing zenith straght up which is best and less atmosphere to have to view through and a South view where I can view M6 and M7 on fairly clear nights.

Most viewing here in Beaufort is best in winter time. The Moon is always a lot of fun to view! And our next home in space!

I will be adding a short article on this web page on using any small store bought telescopes. Even the cheapest telescopes and binoculars can be used and have fun with! Don't let any of us Astronomy gurus keep you from enjoying stargazing and planet observing with the equipment you can afford!

It always nice to have top of the line equipment if one can afford it! A lot of people that I have talked with bought telescopes and are not sure if they can be used for stargazing and I will try and point out the pluses of low priced scopes and binoculars in the article. Stay tuned and dust off that scope!

The best telescope and binoculars are the ones that you use the most!

Keep Looking Up!

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Beaufort South Carolina Weather Clear Sky Clock!

Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)

NEWLINK! Click here and check out Portland,Oregon Rose City Astronomers

NEWLINK! Click here and check out Hubble Telescope update

NEWLINK! Click here and check out International Year of Astronomy 400 years

Click here to get Space Station and Shuttle daily over pass information for Beaufort South Carolina Area!!

NEWLINK! Click here and check out Bill Arnett's Amateur Astronomy Build your own Observatories website!

NEWLINK! Click here and check out Amateur Astronomy Magazine website!

Click here to get US Navy sky faq's

USC Beaufort Library Astronomy web page!

NEW LINK! Click here and check out Kevin Bozard's Astronomy website!

Click here to get and listen to recorded Pulsar sounds!!

Oglethorpe Astronomical Association - Savannah, Georgia

Francis Marion University Planetarium web page!! New link!!

Francis Marion University Observatory web page!! New link!!

College of Charleston - observatory

"Astronomy Magazine" web page!!

"Sky and Telescope Magazine" web page!!

Starmaps from Kym Thalassoudis

Location:

Latitude 32.4 North Longitude 80.7 West

Beaufort, South Carolina, United States ofAmerica

Information about Amateur Astronomer activities in the Lowcountry of South Carolina

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"First, I believe that this nation should commDelivered in person before a joint session of Congress May 25, 1961

"First, I believe that this nation g him safely to the earth."

Acton Astro

Click here to go to Solar Center web site!

Click here to go to Hubble Telescope web site!

Click here to go to Hubble Telescope 799 picture collection web site!

Click here to go to Sky View Cafe, very nice!

Click here to go to Your Sky

Click here to go to Star Map from Mt. Wilson

Click here to go to Skymaps.com

Click here to go to Planet Finder

Click here to go to BinoSky