David Young proudly poses in front of his newly-completed, two-story observatory in Burnt Jacket.
By Emily Patrick
While many visitors to the Moosehead Lake Region will soon be looking up for the 50th International Seaplane Fly-In, many visitors to our region come to gaze at our dazzling night sky. From the Appalachian Mountain Club’s website: “Skies above the Moosehead Lake region are the last remaining dark skies east of the Mississippi River. Our ancestors experienced a night sky that inspired science, religion, philosophy, art, and literature. Light emitted into the night sky makes it difficult to see the stars. Today, only two out of every 10 people on Earth can see the Milky Way.”
So just what is a “dark sky” and why should we care about it? Also from AMC’s website: “A dark sky is one where artificial light does not interfere with the view of the natural starry environment.” Dark skies are measured using the Bortle Scale, ranging from Class 1 (very dark or Arctic skies) to Class 9 (think New York City at night).
Where does the Moosehead Region rate? An impressive Class 1-2[DY1] ! For this reason, in 2021 AMC helped certify 75,000 acres in our region as a Dark Sky Park. Still, why should we care about dark skies? Well, for starters, refer back to paragraph 1. Additionally, making efforts to preserve dark skies helps cut our energy consumption and wastefulness, and many wildlife populations are negatively impacted by night light pollution.
Because of the Moosehead Lake Region’s dark sky designation, an amazing opportunity has just crash-landed in our backyard. Next door to AMC’s Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park, David Young, who has been watching the skies since he was 6 years old, recently built an off-grid two-story observatory with a five-meter dome, equipped with a state-of-the-art robotic 610mm f/6.5 corrected Dall-Kirkham PlaneWave telescope in the quiet forests of Burnt Jacket.
The Far Reach Observatory is aptly-named. Its PlaneWave telescope can accurately point to and view a mind-boggling 88 million stars and over 500,000 deep sky objects in our night sky. The accuracy is equivalent to pointing at a soccer ball 90 miles away with a pair of binoculars. What’s more? The Observatory will be home to a number of programs and opportunities for everyone from school-aged children to Ph.D. candidates working on their graduate projects. In its inception and execution, it was important to David the observatory “…stimulate a whole range of interests.”
…And it’s all free to the community (and beyond, to anyone in the solar system) by invitation.
The opportunities available to the public at the Observatory are vast as the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Far Reach Observatory will offer day and night-time programs, for individuals or groups, for those young and old, remotely or in-house.
Visitors can start with a walk along the Solar System Trail to physically experience the relative distances between planets in our Solar System as they head to the observatory. During the day they may view the sun’s surface through a Lundt Solar Telescope, “where they watch sunspots slowly traverse the solar disk with the aid of a Heliostat which reveals the dynamic nature of our closest star.
Additionally, attendees can listen to the intriguing radio noise generated by solar storms through a dual dipole radio telescope, complete with a projected spectrogram for a richer experience.” This is just the start… The potential at Far Reach Observatory for education and research is truly astronomical.
Where else in the vast cosmos does the public have this opportunity? You can also feel good about visiting the observatory, and bringing home a souvenir. Half of any profits made from the observatory through merchandise sales will go back into our local High School Science program.
While touring the observatory, I was blown away by the scale of the project, as well as David’s passion. David Young and Family are special individuals not only to see this project through (with the help of several local businesses), but to share the riches of the cosmos with others.
The generosity is almost hard to swallow, but David is humble. He says simply it’s, “Important the Town realizes the gift they have with these dark skies [and that they] have the chance to do what 95% of the country can’t do.” Of all the assets the Moosehead Lake Region has, dark skies may be one of our most valuable and certainly the most overlooked.
If you’d like to sign up for an invitation or learn more, please visit https://mooseheadlakeskywatch.org/
[DY1]We are between 1 and 2 but much closer to 1, particularly north of Kokadjo