Family Observing

[twotter]

My brother & his family are visiting this weekend and since they bought my my Dob for my 40th in September I thought it was a good opportunity to share the night sky with them.

We were out a little earlier tonight and we started with Jupiter. Being low in the sky meant the OTA was just above horizontal and so the eyepiece was easy for the kids to look into. We spent nearly half an hour taking turns observing and they all managed to get good views of the planet and moons with both my 25mm & 10mm EPs.

I next tried for the Ring Nebula but it was all but lost in the light pollution above Peterborough so opted for Albireo instead. The kids were able to see the different colours and were surprised that stars weren't all white as they had thought.

With cloud starting to come over from the north I quickly tracked along the Milky Way so they would know what it looked like next time they looked up at a dark sky when they got home.

The two eldest kids have already asked for telescopes for Christmas

[barkis]

That's great. A family star party, and a very enjoyable one too it seems.

I found children are always enthralled be telescopic views of the objects they know about. Albireo is a lovely sight, and will please adults and children. Nice to that the sky stayed clear for the show.

Ron.

[ollypenrice]

All too rarely I get to offer family astronomy nights but I have a neighbour who orgainzes vast gangs of kids - his extended family - into bow and arrow making/mushroom hunting/fossil collecting parties. He always brings them over the field to my place for a night and it is just brilliant. All kids should meet astronomy.

An old school friend of mine came en famille a couple of years ago. We had a night at the scopes and when I got up in the morning he was sitting out in the sun with his nine year old on his knee. The first words I heard that day were his; 'No, it doesn't expand INTO anything. All that there IS is expanding...'

That's how a day should begin...

Olly