Welcome to The Guild of Manhattan Sidewalk Astronomers.

Membership in this guild is stringent: you must have at least once either set up a telescope on a New York sidewalk, or looked through a telescope set up by someone else on a New York sidewalk. Or, perhaps, thought about what it might be like to set up....well, you get the idea. Membership, once conferred, is for life, and the dues are to promise to give as many people as are interested a concentrated dose of cosmical light direct to their retina. New members are welcome to introduce themselves and mention their general location and where they observe from so they and other members in the same area can meet up! We have members in all five boroughs, so there's bound to be someone in your area!

Be sure to check out the "links" section for sites related to astronomy in the Big Apple, as well other sites of general interest to those with parsec-roaming minds.

Seeing can be rated as follows: (high power view - 30-40X/inch)
V - Perfect motionless diffraction pattern.
IV - Light undulations across diffraction rings.
III - Central disc deformations. Broken diffraction rings.
II - Important eddy streams in the central disc. Missing or partly missing diffraction rings.
I - Boiling image without any sign of diffraction pattern.

image from the Canadian Meteorological Centre website.


Curtis observing from his rooftop.