Astroscan

It's just after midnight and I have returned from a wee bit of stargazing and lunar observing! What fun. Today, Orion's birthday present finally arrived! Having been out of stock for nearly a month, made for a terrible wait on the part of both a 10 year old boy and a 40 year old boy.

The Astroscan is an odd looking telescope. But what it lacks in 'looks' it makes up for in other ways. It is very portable. It takes very little technical skill to use. It's very easy to set up. It requires no maintenance of the mirror! And it provides a pretty clear image with it's parabolic (instead of spherical) mirror.

This wide-field scope allowed us to view several awesome sights from our yard in the middle of town. We spent several minutes checking out the crescent moon. The shadows on the surface of the moon were crisp. I cannot wait to figure out how to attach my camera! Until then, this is what the moon looked like this evening.

I then trained the scope on Alcor and Mizar, visual binary stars in the handle of the Big Dipper in the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Bear. Impressive. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch any of the numerous Messier Objects in Ursa Major with the scope. I think it had to do with all the lights from the downtown area.

Last, but hardly least, we took a gander at Jupiter. Awesome. No, we didn't see the great spot or swirling dark clouds, this is a small scope, not the Hubble! But what we did see was breathtaking. We saw Jupiter as a tiny point of light and to either side we saw four of Jupiter's moons. The Galilean Moons: Europa, Io, Ganymede, Callisto were named for Galileo who first observed them in 1610. If we're patient, we can track the orbits of these moons during the summer. It would be an interesting project. But mostly I cannot wait to take some awesome lunar photos.

Orion totally enjoyed his scope. He looked at every pinpoint of light he could find! He didn't want to come in. But he's sleeping soundly now! Happy Belated Tenth Birthday Orion and thank you Meme and My Bob in Conway for Orion's special gift.