Hi folks,
I just wish to share a gift I received Friday, Sept 30.
My 27yo daughter asked to come out with me on an observing session! What a thrill.
The sky was darkening by 1930 and the Milky Way was from horizon to horizon by 2000.
We oriented ourselves with some constellations. She knew UMa , Sag, Cas. I added Sco,Cyg,Her,Cap,Peg.
We started with Polaris as a wonderful double star.
Next was M22 + GC discussion followed by M13 and M92
M17 + Nebula discussion with and without OIII
Blinking Planetary and M57-she could see blue-
In M24 is a cool cluster NGC 6603 as well as
several Bernard Dark Nebula and a view of the
Norma spiral arm .(I hope I got that right.)
We went extragalactic and eyeballed M31 then went to the low power scope view. M81,82,51,33-and it's Hydrogen cloud.
We located Venus, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune.
She asked Questions. How do we know how far those ______
are? Parallax, Cepheids, Redshift.
How are galaxies, stars, planets formed?
-Thank Heaven for all the astronomers and writers and folks like you that have pondered, then pounded these
concepts into my head over the years. It was 3 hours
I hope to never forget.
John
I just wish to share a gift I received Friday, Sept 30.
My 27yo daughter asked to come out with me on an observing session! What a thrill.
The sky was darkening by 1930 and the Milky Way was from horizon to horizon by 2000.
We oriented ourselves with some constellations. She knew UMa , Sag, Cas. I added Sco,Cyg,Her,Cap,Peg.
We started with Polaris as a wonderful double star.
Next was M22 + GC discussion followed by M13 and M92
M17 + Nebula discussion with and without OIII
Blinking Planetary and M57-she could see blue-
In M24 is a cool cluster NGC 6603 as well as
several Bernard Dark Nebula and a view of the
Norma spiral arm .(I hope I got that right.)
We went extragalactic and eyeballed M31 then went to the low power scope view. M81,82,51,33-and it's Hydrogen cloud.
We located Venus, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune.
She asked Questions. How do we know how far those ______
are? Parallax, Cepheids, Redshift.
How are galaxies, stars, planets formed?
-Thank Heaven for all the astronomers and writers and folks like you that have pondered, then pounded these
concepts into my head over the years. It was 3 hours
I hope to never forget.
John
You definitely received the best gift of all. Cheers, John. 
