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Angel and I made some hot chocolate and hauled the telescope outside for our first session at our apartment here in Bloomington, a suburb of
Minneapolis. As expected, the light pollution was horrible and really impeded our view of the stars. We looked at the Double Cluster again (it's my favorite deep sky object so far),
Jupiter, and finally we were able to see Saturn. Saturn
through the 12mm eyepiece was beautiful and Angel was amazed. That of course was the whole point. I love having her come out to gaze at the stars with me. We had some more focusing and mount problems and Angel said "We really need a new telescope." That's music to my ears. We also saw the Northern Lights. It was an eerie green glow that seemed to form a cap over the northern sky. There were sometimes bright green vertical shafts that looked like green spotlights. A nice ending to the evening.
I'm going to start going through a book that teaches star hopping in order to be able to find more interesting objects. I'd like to see the Swan Nebula
again as well as the
Crab and Dumbell nebulae. Hopefully soon we will have a pair of binoculars. Then we can just run outside with a blanket, some hot chocolate, and the binoculars and get some great wide field views.
What a fantastic thing it is to sit under the stars and just be lost in the beauty and awe of the universe. The heavens really do declare the glory of
God.
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