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dark skies over the Korean peninsula.

Discussion in 'General Astronomy Chat' started by kevan hubbard, Aug 14, 2017.

dark skies over the Korean peninsula.

Started by kevan hubbard on Aug 14, 2017 at 2:54 AM

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  1. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    kevan hubbard, Aug 14, 2017
    #1
    Anyone looked at night time views of the Korean peninsula from space? South Korea is flooded with light, north Korea mostly black apart from a bit around Pyongyang. Be great for stargazing if you could get into the hermit state(and out!).you can only go on organised tours but perhaps these are suspended due to the present troubles?China seems to be the way in on an overnight train from Beijing although there is also a train from Moscow once a week. Crossing from south Korea is not possible. Perhaps it could become an international dark skies country!!??
     
  2. Dave In Vermont

    Dave In Vermont Well-Known Member

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    Dave In Vermont, Aug 14, 2017
    #2
    Trump has banned all Americans from going to the DPRK after the young college kid was finally released, and promptly dropped dead upon return. So your Night Skies Tour is scrapped for now. Seems Dear Leader drinks the electric-budget for the whole country. So it's on a rather permanent black-out.

    The way things are going - it's just as well. It's likely to become a gamma-emitting parking-lot in the not-to-distant future...


    ivy-mike-hydrogen-bomb-mushroom-cloud 1952.jpg

    Dave
     
  3. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    kevan hubbard, Sep 14, 2017
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    Since this relations twixt the USA and north Korea have deteriorated somewhat more!however anyone except south Korean folk could technically visit north Korea,although an interesting questions if north Korean could do the trip from their end or in reverse????.the trip was done as follows go to Seoul, south Korea,and book a trip to see the DMZ. You'll be taken to see a room with a long table in it.the north end of the table is in north Korea and you are,or where, allowed to walk around the table.only south Koreans where banned from these trips,not sure why.bad luck with the coveted north Korean passport stamp however!regarding Americans getting further in,unwise even under the slightly better relationship of the past,but they where banned from visiting Cuba yet plenty went. I believe that this Cuban ban was lifted.... The along come the hurricane down there!!oh that long room was/is for negotiations between the north and south.
     
  4. Dave In Vermont

    Dave In Vermont Well-Known Member

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    Dave In Vermont, Sep 14, 2017
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    The ban from visiting Nicaragua went into effect under Reagan. As usual - the USA was on the side of dictators and murders and Contras. And a friend of mine went anyway - a Vietnam-Vet and activist. He was there to operate a radio-statio broadcasting what was really going on to US troops stationed on the borders of Nicaragua in Honduras and Guatemala - troops who were being told these evil Commies were disembowling babies and raping little girls with sickles & hammers.

    It was insanity.

    He returned to the USA from Mexico. And was dragged away into a little room in the airport in New York. Bright neon-lights and armed-guards. "What were you doing in Nicaragua!?" He said: "Trout-Fishing."

    They let him return home here - to Vermont.

    The IRS audited his taxes back 7 years. He was disabled in Vietnam. Lived on disability. Acted as an advisor to then Mayor Bernie Sanders.

    This looks to me as we are closing in to one of the "Campaign Issues" leading up to last November 8th. "Why haven't we used nuclear weapons?"

    Getting closer by the day. Failed business-man vs. dynastic-Marxist lunatic. Heaven help us all.
     
  5. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    kevan hubbard, Sep 14, 2017
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    A quasi Marxist, north Korea seems to be based on a sort of ancestor cult,all very pagan under the surface. Ancestor cults where strong in China, Japan and Korea in years gone by.in my extensive travel experience USA border police don't look at your passport stamps,they only look at the photograph id bit,and scan it, so they'd never know where you'd been unless you told them,unwise!Most countries do this the only one I recall checking stamps was Lebanon, after Israeli stamps....luckily they where in my old expired passport! Regarding amateur astronomy in these strange police states.I understand north Korea may ban you bringing in any optical equipment like binoculars, monoculars,etc.Algeria seems to have this rule too although I haven't been to that one.
     
  6. Dave In Vermont

    Dave In Vermont Well-Known Member

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    Dave In Vermont, Sep 14, 2017
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    Gary, my disabled Vietnam-vet & activist friend, wasn't just a traveler like you. He was (and is) an anti-war activist. They knew very well where he'd been. And were waiting for him. We activists were quite used to being spied on by the government: Phone-taps, mail intercepts, shiny, black Lincoln Continental's with mirrored-windows on our streets.....It was intended to harrass us - frighten us off from our sordid lives of committing such heinous & criminal lives as being a man/woman of moral-conscious. Our passports had a tendency of vanishing and not being renewed when submitted upon expiring in the 10-year cycle. I intend to write a book on this subject. But something tells me I'll have to get same published in another country. Probably Germany. Which will be the Maraschino-Cherry on the sundae of irony. 70 years ago the combat-boot was on the other foot...

    I can't think of any reason to pay the DPRK a visit at this stage of world-history. I'd need a reason - now that it's forbidden to go there - that aced 'trout-fishing.' Temporary-Insanity is the one that comes to mind first & foremost, followed by (today) 'suicidal-depression.' I'm a stamp-collector, amongst my other proclivities, and their stamps have such lovely topics as a drawing of people labeled as 'USA' having their throats slit. As well as flowers & dogs & worlds' fair thematics. It was illegal to have and/or sell them in the US up until about 10 years ago. A policy to keep 'hard-currency' away from Pyongyang & Co.

    I can see why things like binoculars and telescopes would be likely to advertise being an intelligence agent. The dark-skies there are certainly appealing though. Pyongyang could make some 'hard-currency' by organizing 'dark-sky' packages for people like us though! Until one group came back in body-bags.

    evaD
     
  7. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Mak the Night, Sep 14, 2017
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    I think North Korea is probably heavily light polluted in reality. It's obviously some kind of dastardly country wide stealth technology hiding the streetlights from Google Earth. This will enable NK to sneak up on it's enemies unseen in the night.

    The bounders! It's just not cricket.
     
  8. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    kevan hubbard, Sep 15, 2017
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    I wonder why Algeria has it's anti telescope policy? You don't hear much about it but it would appear to be sort of stable. I've seen it from Tunisia and the northern part would appear to be green and wooded much like northern Tunisia. Of course you might be able to smuggle in a small pen like Zeiss mini quick 5x10 monocular, poor light gathering but the sort of thing a spy might pack when seeing if it's canopus floating along Pyongyang's horizon!
     

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