"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

Tonight is one of the nights when it's really hard not to tell you all about my job and how much I love it. The simple version is that I got to invite the rest of the Master Naturalist students to come to my place of employment for the evening. We had an astronomy lesson, and then my boss (who rocks) set up his telescope and showed everyone how it worked. After that, we got to take a close-up look at Venus, Sirius (the Dog Star, brightest star seen from the Northern Hemisphere), Saturn and its rings and four of its moons, and the Orion Nebula. It was absolutely amazing. I'd seen the rings of Saturn before, on a field trip with my and Danger's high school astronomy class, but this was even more incredible. This picture isn't quite as cool as what we saw, but it's pretty close:



Seeing the Orion Nebula was insane. We had to use a filter to get rid of the city lights, and it made the nebula look like a blue haze. It was unreal. We even saw the Trapezium Cluster within the Nebula. It was absolutely wicked.

Back in January, I posted a diagram for finding Saturn, so I figured I'd do that again in case anyone is interested in finding some cool stuff to look at in the night sky. I don't think my angles and spacing are very precise, but it'll give you the general idea:



I also borrowed a small telescope from work to take to Danger's house on Saturday night for our co-birthday party. I'm hoping we'll be able to see the rings of Saturn again.

the Trapezium Cluster
(NASA / Hubble Space Telescope)




And, in case this was all too serious for you, here's the Star Wars gangsta rap: