This past Friday, I took TRC out to our university’s observatory, where the first Friday of every month, an astronomy professor takes whoever shows up on a tour of the night sky, using the university’s pretty darn nice telescope. All of this, free of charge? Sign me up. It was a tad brisk outside that night–we were glad we wore our coats–but the sky was clear and we saw quite the show. Nebulae, galaxies, globular clusters (which sounds like a candy bar), binary stars, Mars, and our personal favorite: Saturn (and two of its moons!). This was the first time I’d been able to look through a telescope and see the rings, and it was quite the experience. TRC had a blast, oohing and ahing through the whole thing. He really got into it, which only made my time that much more enjoyable.
For anyone interested in a fun, free, educational evening, check the forecast for the first Friday each month. If it’s clear, the tour is on! I’m definitely planning on going again to check it out.