The stars
Recently I’ve made the wonderful discovery that my kids are actually interested in seeing celestial wonders. Interested enough that I have dusted off my 4.5 inch Newtonian and started almost nightly star parties.
While the views are nothing compared with what we are used to seeing from the Hubble, the first sight of Saturn in even the smallest of telescopes is lovely enough to move even the most jaded adult. Which in this case was my wife who exclaimed “It really does have rings!”
Most non-stellar objects - nebulas, galaxies, etc. - show up as gray fuzzies (that’s a technical term, really). You need a significant amount of filtration to ’see’ the colors of the Orion Nebula. Otherwise, it’s a wisp of gray surrounding the Trapezium - four newly minted stars burning brightly in the heart of the storm.
But there’s something special about seeing it real for yourself. Like that first view of Saturn - merely a ball the size of a Sudafed tablet, glowing yellow, with the rings sometimes looking like oversized ears. It’s real, it’s authentic. It’s the true experience.
I’ve spent three evenings this week hunting down a trio of galaxies in Leo’s hindquarters and it’s driving me nuts that they are there, plain to see, in the photo above but they aren’t showing themselves in my telescope. But I’ll get them.
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