Probably the most exciting thing in my life right now is work. Last week I was hired to operate the school's telescope. I LOVE IT! It is only 3 nights a week but the joy of getting to look at the stars for 2 hours is just amazing. And each night the stars look different. The moon for example. There must be a fire somewhere because the sky is really hazy by the horizen. Well Thursday night the moon was this deep dark red. It was amazing to see it in the telescope. Instead of this bright yellow ball that you can see on the back of your eyelids it was the dim red ball of rock. It was just amazing to look at and only lasted about 30 min before it was out of the haze. The other big adventure for me has been Albeiro. Albeiro is a binary star system, meaning that you have 2 stars rotating around each other. There are many of these but Albeiro is the coolest because one star looks purple while the other is yellow. The other operator is a girl named Alyssa that ran the telescope last Fall and Winter. Well she couldn't find Albeiro and I looked at my map, made a guess, and found it on my first try! Now, two days later Alyssa still isn't sure where it is and I can look at the sky and find it almost immediately. I am very proud of how quickly I'm learning to run the telescope. And trust me, I'm not boasting. There are some thing Alyssa can find that I have no hope to. In any case, I am way exciting to see what happens next time I look at the stars....
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Looking at the Stars
Probably the most exciting thing in my life right now is work. Last week I was hired to operate the school's telescope. I LOVE IT! It is only 3 nights a week but the joy of getting to look at the stars for 2 hours is just amazing. And each night the stars look different. The moon for example. There must be a fire somewhere because the sky is really hazy by the horizen. Well Thursday night the moon was this deep dark red. It was amazing to see it in the telescope. Instead of this bright yellow ball that you can see on the back of your eyelids it was the dim red ball of rock. It was just amazing to look at and only lasted about 30 min before it was out of the haze. The other big adventure for me has been Albeiro. Albeiro is a binary star system, meaning that you have 2 stars rotating around each other. There are many of these but Albeiro is the coolest because one star looks purple while the other is yellow. The other operator is a girl named Alyssa that ran the telescope last Fall and Winter. Well she couldn't find Albeiro and I looked at my map, made a guess, and found it on my first try! Now, two days later Alyssa still isn't sure where it is and I can look at the sky and find it almost immediately. I am very proud of how quickly I'm learning to run the telescope. And trust me, I'm not boasting. There are some thing Alyssa can find that I have no hope to. In any case, I am way exciting to see what happens next time I look at the stars....
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2 comments:
That is way cool Alicia - keep looking you may find things you never thought possible
i've said it before and i said it again, i am jealous. i wihs i were in your shoes... i'd love more time for stargazing. especially with something fancy.... *sigh* i really want to visit and do this.
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