Jupiter!

One of my many interests is astronomy and astrophysics. I read a fantastic blog called "Starts With a Bang" by Ethan Siegel, an astrophysicist and great teacher from Portland, OR. I often share what I learn with the girls. Ethan frequently uses images from the Hubble Space Telescope which are especially amazing and inspiring. I try to inculcate the girls with a sense of wonder about the sheer scope of the universe. Audrey has taken a real interest, to the point where she sometimes says she wants to be an astronomer.

For some time I've been desiring a telescope for skywatching with the girls both at home and while camping away from the light pollution of the city. It took me a long time to learn enough to select a telescope. Last week I finally felt confident enough to choose and I ordered an Orion XT4.5 Dobsonian telescope. This particular type of telescope strikes a good balance between observing planets and deep space objects like nebulae and clusters.

From reading the amateur astronomy forums, it sounds like there is a law of nature that when you buy a new telescope it will be cloudy on the day you receive it. It was true the day we received ours. Last night, however, the clouds dissipated around sunset. We went out to dinner and when we returned I pulled out the new scope. It was only 34F out so I knew we wouldn't be outdoors too long. Jupiter was conveniently right overhead so I sighted it in. Each of us got a good look at Jupiter and we could also clearly see four of its moons. We don't have a camera for our telescope yet (you can bet we will) but what we saw, other than the positions of the moons, looked very much like the image above.

I've very satisfied with the instrument I selected. I'm very excited to have many years of skywatching ahead of us and it's going to be a fun addition to all of our summer camping trips.