Tonight, inspired by a recent post on BoingBoing, we braved the chilly 27F/-3C night and I handed the kids my trusty old binoculars and told them to take a look at Jupiter. As cold as it was, the sky was really clear and visibility was great. None of us had trouble spotting the four biggest  moons of the planet – which were the first objects in space observed to orbit an object other than the sun or the earth.

For the kids especially, it was an amazing experience to take a closer look at this bright spot in the night sky and to realize it’s Jupiter, and to be able to see Jupiter’s moons  just like that, with a pair of binoculars.

OUR moon also is amazing to watch – it is in its third quarter right now, and on a crisp, clear night you can see the texture of the surface and the curvature of the sphere. At the day/night border you can see the craters and mountains very clearly. It feels like you could reach and touch it. Very cool.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Adventures, Mother Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.