Right before the sun went down, we discovered that Jupiter and Venus would be extremely close to a beautiful crescent moon. Supposedly you could have even seen Juipter's ring that night, even with a cheap-o telescope.
But ours wasn't performing even to the cheap-o standards that night, much to my dismay. Yes, the lens cap was off. Jay couldn't figure it out, either. Later on we figured out that the focusing knob's screw was stripped. :P
"It's okay!"
Luke was excited beyond belief upon seeing Jupiter and Venus. "Look! I see Jupiter! I see Venus, too! Wow!" Then he repeated this about 30 times with joyful laughter in between each observation. We had to keep reminding him that it was Venus and not Mars that he saw. To him it made much more sense to see those two planets together, not Venus and Jupiter, of course. After he was done looking at these two planets he asked, "Mama, but where is Mercury and Venus and Earth and Mars and Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and Neptune and Pluto and Ceres and Eris and Haumea and Makemake?" I replied, "I know that Venus and Jupiter are right there, and we are standing on Earth, but as for the others, we'll have to look them up, okay?"
"Oh....okay." He was slightly disappointed. But only for a minute.
Amazing! Venus is the brightest star closest to the bottom in this picture. Jupiter is the one on the right side.
Isn't it beautiful? I loved knowing what I was looking at, but I must admit that it freaked me out. Those planets seemed close! I'm a little bit more comfortable with a little bit more elbow room. You know, should we happen to collide and stuff. I'm just sayin'. I know that's not going to happen...anytime soon!
Even baby brother had some fun, too! (The light you see with the boys is Venus.)
We will definitely be spending more nights under the stars, especially with Luke's growing interest in astronomy.
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