Party at the Moontower!

[Blake]

Hi Austin User Group! 

The last 6-7 weeks have been pretty rough and I hope that everyone is doing well.

Lately I've been thinking of a few of the things that I love about Austin and living in Central Texas. 

Some of my favorite things are probably on your list too : The Butler Hike and Bike Trail around the lake, SXSW, tacos. Oh man, do I love tacos! 

Another one of my favorite things is the quirkiness (less and less all the time) of our city. One of the quirky things that comes to mind to me are the moonlight towers (or moon towers) that are found around town. The NYT did a story on them in 2014 and a moon tower was featured in the movie "Dazed and Confused". 

I've attached an Alteryx challenge that utilizes a little bit of parsing and spatial tools to show the coverage area of Austin's moon towers. I think it is a fun little exercise. If you have some time, complete it and post your solution. The map below shows the moon towers which currently exist and a rough estimate the of area that they illuminate at night. 

What are some of your favorite things about living in Austin/Central Texas? 

[jtwmoore]

Awesome challenge and bonus history lesson! I actually ended up with a slightly different sq. mileage value for the extant moontowers because I filtered out the Austin History Center record. I did so because the Austin History Center map states that there are only 13 extant moontowers. Not sure why they elected to add the lat/long of the AHC to the data set but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

By the way, props for splitting your extant/extinct after doing most of the spatial stuff--definitely the more efficient solution.

My favorite thing about living in Austin is being surrounded by like-minded environmentalists without having to leave Texas. Also the tacos.

Thanks for the prompt!