BNSF Muscle at the Port of Los Angeles

Hey are these photoshopped?  Where's all the air pollution?

LOL Martin. Yeah, quite an amazing day by LA air quality standards. Wait til later in the summer/fall during a Santa Ana.

Very cool Scott, thanks for sharing!

I thought I read somewhere that they do very little sorting there. They load the containers on a train and they go to another location for sorting. They don't have the room.  Could someone verify?

Yes they give tours on the Iowa, awesome!  Go Big Stick!

You might find some discounted tickets on Groupon too. 

HEY SCOTT, 

That's why I decided to retire to the High Desert 16 years ago...NO air pollution, and crystal-clear skies for Astronomy!

How often do you see the Milky Way from anywhere in the L.A Basin?

BAD ORDER

Wow Hal I would love to get a look through that telescope! In LA I can periodically make out Orion but that's about it. My dad has a house just outside of Bridgeport on the Twin Lakes though. Star view there is breathtaking.

Hal,

Please tell me that is your telescope???

So I'm not the only amateur astronomer here.  A few years ago in Greenbank, WVa, within ear shot of Cass Scenic RR.  20-inch f/6 telescope.  Greenbank Radio Telescope in the back ground.

HEY MIKE,

Yep, that's my 17.5" f/5 Discovery dobsonian, all 198 pounds of it!

The picture was taken 12 years ago when I was a youngster of 65.  I've owned many scopes since then!

Here are a few:

Bad Order Hal

Hal,

As an amateur astronomer you must have a few discoveries to your credit. What's the neatest thing you've seen?

S

HEY SCOTT,

After 49 years as an active amateur astronomer, I have discovered absolutely nothing.

My favorite DSO (deep sky object) has always been M-104, the Sombrero Galaxy. (shown)

At 65 million light years distant, the light now reaching my telescope started out from that object when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

That's the fascinating part of owning a device that can look so far into the Past!

Bad Order

Way OT here :-).

Hal,

My 20-inch f/6 is homemade (including the mirror), and 30 years old at this point.  A somewhat dated history is here:

http://ladyandtramp.com/tj/

Bob

The LA area has made huge strides in cleaning the air (yea that nasty EPA and CA Resources Board) Somewhere underneath that rail yard is the land that my dad established his trucking company at and where I spent my first few working years

HEY BOB,

WOW!   That's quite a story!  Was it published in SKY and TELESCOPE or ASTRONOMY?

Bad Order Hal