A Night at the Observatory

[logansrogue]

Last night a group of my family and friends went to the Perth Observatory in the foothills to cop a look at some astronomical awesomeness. The drive was a long one but the hills are so very beautiful and the stars! Ah! So many stars!! They positively *glitter* out there, you wouldn't believe it! I wish I had better eyesight so I could see them without them being blurry :(

Anyhow, a very charismatic and agreeable fellow by the name of Greg gave us a tour and we all went on different telescopes there, checking out different features in the sky. We saw:

- Magellan's Cloud. That was pretty cool!
- Saturn. It looked SO AWESOME! Like a photograph!
- Alpha Centauri. SHINY!
- The Tarantula Nebula.
- The nebula in Orion.
- A globular cluster I forget the name of.

I may be remembering things twice or forgetting some things. It was really spectacular to see this stuff through these huge telescopes. I've yearned to see these things properly through telescopes for years and I wasn't disappointed last night. Just seeing the Observatory, too, and going up to the big telescope where they do their proper research - it was so exciting!

It was really funny cause a call came through to one of the telescope sheds while we were out there and the astronomer dude took it (Ralph) and it was clear somebody saw something and was calling to ask what it was.

"Hot air balloon," he says, "Or one of those kid's balloons."

I lost it. I was laughing so hard, I was just waiting for him to say "Swamp gas" ya know? LOL!

We went up there for a treat for Mum and she just loved it. I don't mind that it was thirty dollars. I'm glad my money is going to help fund their activities up in the hills. Perth is in a really excellent spot so our dudes have helped out NASA a bit in the past.

Comments

[pixienymph.livejournal.com]

I love going to the Observatory! I went when there was some alignment thing happening, and all the amateurs were out with their telescopes, letting us look and having a chit chat. It was fabulous. Most of them couldn't believe that this random chick (me) knew "so much" about astronomy.

:D

PS, do you have a MySpace for your music?

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Hehe! My Mum and brother Paul started asking questions Greg couldn't answer. He was like, "Uhm, remember? You're going to have to ask Ralph the hard questions!"

Yes! My username is nancylorenz.

[onlymyhobby.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Sounds like a good time. I wish there was an observatory closer to here. I don't even know of one and it sucks, cuz i'd love to those things too. Glad mum had fun :D

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

She had a fabulous time. She refused to go home at the point where Greg said those that wanted to pike out could pike out, she was like, "Nope! I'm staying for the WHOLE thing!" :D

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

I remember the first time I saw Saturn through a telescope. I almost cried, it was awesome.

Then I looked at Jupiter's moons and we worked out that the second one along, the blue one was Europa. A planet that possibly has similarities to earth and could even possibly support some sort of bizarre life. I was just like, "Gaahhh wow."

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

cricketk is a volunteer, and sometimes leads observatory tours.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Tina mentioned something about someone from UNISFA being there :)

[onlymyhobby.livejournal.com]

lol awww glad she had fun :D

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Dude - where did you get your icon from?

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

I know, I was like that when I first saw Jupiter's moons too. :)

[onlymyhobby.livejournal.com]

This one? Um.. angelfish icons? I can't remember.. One of the communities listed in my profile.. I've gotta go back through the entries so I can find the person who made it and credit them lol.