Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Telescope

Guess what Calista got from Santa?



It's just a little 2.4" Meade refractor. Nothing fancy. But it does the job for a first telescope--especially since my 6" reflector isn't in useable condition and the girls keep wanting to look through it. The moon's not visible right now in the evening, but we took it out Christmas night to see what planets we might take a peek at. Venus was obvious up there the the evening sky, but from experience I knew it wouldn't offer much. Fortunately, it's currently in crescent phase, and that showed up impressively. Then we turned the scope up to Mars, high in the sky. We saw a bright, pink disc, which earned some oohs and aahs from the girls. A couple hours later we took it back out to take a look at Saturn, and the view was spectacular. Saturn never, ever disappoints, even in the smallest telescopes. The rings were clearly defined, and even if we couldn't see the Cassini division, the shadow of the rings over the planet was clear.

I absolutely must get my telescope in working order this year.

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