Astronomy

I got something new last week. A Celestron PowerSeeker 127 EQ telescope. We haven’t done much with it yet, as it’s been Full moon and waning from there, but still too bright, or too overcast to see much.

We did see the moon right after rising (Feb. 11th 2009 between 9 & 10pm) just looking gently through the eyepiece, it was bright, but not too much so since it was still low in the sky. It was nice to see it so close, and will be nicer when it’s not so lit up in a few days.

I will want to upgrade some things, but for now I’m getting used to using it, and still need to make the starfinder sit still and be in the right spot to work for me.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of the planets soon, hopefully soon. I have had no luck getting anything in view at night except for that moon, and a distant weird look at some constellations which did not improve in the telescope (since the sky was still too light from everything, from the sunset not long before to the moon rise to my lack of experience with telescopes up to now.)

I’ve also looked online for things to support this newer look into my hobby of looking at the stars at night, and integrating it into the homeschooling I do with my children.

I’ve gotten some things to print out, and some video and audio to put on their Sansa Fuze players every week/month, as released.

Hubble unfiltered (video episodes) and SkyWatch (weekly audio highlights of astronomy news) and Tonights Sky (monthly video highlights of the northern hemisphere night sky) are free on this site: hubblesite.org portal page found here: hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/

The Evening Sky is a free monthly printable PDF on this site: skymaps.com found here: skymaps.com/downloads.html

I hope to get some things to connect my camera to the telescope for some great pictures. That’s something I”ll be able to use with the sky at night and on land during the day. 🙂