When I pick up a newspaper, my eyes are always drawn to a story about connectivity. I’d say it’s because my DNA is hardwired that way after more than 36 years in this industry. So, it was no surprise this week when I picked up the New York Times and saw the headline, "A Mission to Improve Stargazing From Home."
I have always loved looking up at the heavens and trying to guess what constellations I am seeing. My parents used to tell us stories about Orion and how that set of stars had been in the sky when they fell in love. In Greek mythology, Orion was a giant hunter who was placed in the sky after being killed by a scorpion sent by Gaia. The scorpion constellation now chases Orion across the sky.
Most distinctive is Orion's Belt, identified by three bright stars in a straight line. Having grown up in Wisconsin, there were certainly more visible night skies than there are here in the Washington, D.C., area. But I have found a few observatories, including one on the Northwestern University campus, where I could really indulge my curiosity over the years.
Despite all that, I have never bothered to buy a telescope, which is why the story’s subheadline, "Turning Stargazing Into a Remote-Controlled Hobby," was enough to have me read the full article. Connectivity and constellations? I was all in.
The story notes a startup named Starfront Observatories, which chose to locate in Rockwood, Texas, a sparsely populated part of central Texas where the night sky is big and bold. In this age of digital cameras and state-of-the-art internet, amateur astronomy can now be done remotely – but connectivity is key.
This company started about a year ago and has now rapidly grown to a "field" of over 550 telescopes. Clients send their equipment (which ranges from amateur setups to the most sophisticated telescopes) to be housed at this site with a monthly fee that allows the owners to do their own stargazing from the comfort of...anywhere.
I was not only intrigued, but I was also pretty sure that this rural location had to be near an NTCA member company. When I did a little sleuthing, I reached out to Kandra Young, CEO of Coleman County Telephone Cooperative (CCTC; Santa Anna, Texas), who shared that not only is CCTC the service provider for Starfront Observatories, but this group of entrepreneurs has quickly become one of their largest customers in the short year they have been in operation.
Kandra's enthusiasm was contagious as she noted how proud she is that CCTC can provide the connectivity Starfront needs in such a rural and desolate part of its service territory. And I would add the footnote of how proud I am that CCTC is one of our Smart Rural Community providers. That kind of service is not only smart – it's pretty genius!