After last week's yoga class (1h15m.... whew!), Matt and I went to the University's observatory because they were hosting a viewing open to the public. For the last two months it had been cancelled due to cloudy or rainy weather. Our friend Alex in the Astrophysics department was one of the leaders. He showed us Saturn first. Wow. Saturn is super cool and even though it was tiny in the telescope, it was a clear image and the rings were definitely there!
After that, we looked at Mizar, the middle star in the big dipper handle. To the naked eye, it looks like 1 star, but in the telescope, it's two rotating around each other. But in reality, it's 4 stars, all rotating around each other. So cool!
Next, we looked at M3, which is a star cluster made up of millions of stars. It looks like a cloud, but this Google picture is cooler.
Finally, Alex showed us M81 which is a whole galaxy with planets and moons and their own suns.
Matt said he saw an alien mooning him.
It's great talking to Alex who is so knowledgeable about things we know nothing about or things we learned way back when in 8th grade Earth Science class. Here's an example:
Matt: How far are astronomers able to see? How many light years away?
Alex: We can see to the edge of the universe.
Rebekah: jaw drops and mind blows a little
Matt: There's an
edge??
Alex: We can see to the edge of the
visible universe. We can't see beyond that because the light hasn't reached us yet.
Us: Oh.
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