The Telescopes of Luna

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Gazing into the infinite vastness of the celestial world is quite an extraordinary experience. We should all be grateful that a place exists that welcomes your participation.

— Farven Amberspirit, Astrologer

As the Lunarians are fascinated with the night sky and everything in it, the telescope has become an important and even symbolic tool in their society. Nowhere is this most apparent than at the Silver City of Luna. The telescopes here have the most powerful magnifications of any similar devices on the continent, and the Lunarians like to adorn them with various artistic designs making each item unique in appearance.

Lunarian Viewing Nights

As telescopes are highly precise constructions they are quite expensive and time consuming to produce properly. Fortunately, one does not need to own a telescope to use one. Owners and even the university will have viewing nights dedicated to allowing many a chance to take breathtaking views of the starry skies. Viewing nights can be weekend events to lasting a full week during the months of Luna and Stella when nights are longest. The 21st of Luna is especially important for its position in the calendar as the Winter Equinox, the longest night of the year. During this night the Lunarians celebrate Talvipäivänseisaus. This special day will see nearly every telescope in Luna in use as part of a greater array of festivities to celebrate the longest viewing of the stars of the year.
And yes, food is provided at these events. Favorites include Moon Cookies, Moon Cakes, Moon- quite a lot of moon themed deserts actually. There are also some constellation themed confectioneries. Drinks and various kinds of fruit salads and vegetable platters are also a common staple of Viewing Nights.

Enchanted Telescopes

Lunarians are generally known to be a patient people but this patience can run out. Sometimes, waiting a whole day to view the stars once again just takes too long. Thus, it is not uncommon for a Lunarian to enchant their telescope allowing it to view the stars and other celestial objects during daylight hours. This allows for a constant study of the motions of the celestial objects. This is a highly useful feature for students, researchers, and astrologists at the Bluewood Academy where it is most often used.

Ancient Telescopes

Lunarians prize the recovery and study of ancient telescopes from the pre-collapse era. These devices can come in many shapes and sizes with some being truly large in scale. Yet all were incredibly precise constructions and most of them utilized a system of almost impossibly finely grounded silver mirrors which must have produced a truly clear image to the eye. All of these mirrors were damaged by the wild magics of the Great Collapse and if any were enchanted the effect was usually lost. That is not to say all were shattered, but that the mere presence of dirt will scratch the delicate mirrors which compromises their usefulness. Combined with damage to other parts of the telescope, and you have devices that are often completely unusable.
Ancient observatories contained the largest telescopes ever recorded. These massive constructions, based on what remained of them, could easily be the length of a small fishing ship. It is suspected that some of these telescopes may have worked in concert with one another though exactly how is currently debated. The academy intends to create their own telescope of similar size and make, even larger than the one currently operational in their observatory, but the endeavor is proving to be expensive and time consuming. Even the smallest mistakes in measurement will result in a need to scrap and then rework the entire telescope.
While it can be difficult to believe, scholars of the Bluewood Academy suspect that the Ancient Order had observatories high in the sky at the height of their power. How to get to them is a topic of research, though their existence will need to be confirmed first.

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lleuadalas Academy Telescope

The largest and most powerful telescope in the Silver City is located at the lleuadalas Academy in the outskirts of the Silver City. The academy is a prestigious educational institution as it has trained Lunaria's most skilled mages.
It is in the academy's observatory that the largest telescope on the continent was constructed. It is built with a lens that is about 12" in diameter and so it has the greatest magnification of any telescope to be found on the continent and so t is used in important research. The design was inspired by recovered ancient artifacts and documents.
Queen Shava Lunaria herself visits the observatory from time to time to utilize the telescope.

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Strange Ancient Telescopes

Some recovered telescope artifacts reveals designs that do not seem to produce a visible image to the eye for any species. It is unclear what the ancients were trying to measure with these strange devices.

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Note(s) from the Archivists:

Are we sure telescopes aren't just glorified spyglasses? - Archivist Bob
Yes. - Archivist Enna
No. - Archivist Edward
I don't know. - Archivist Savitri
It depends. - Archivist Tharivol
Yes. - Archivist Taenya