A Little Stargazing

Photo Credit: NASA

We headed outside at about 10:30 pm last night. It was chilly. We had our lawn chairs and my phone, with the Skywatch app. Love that app! So many times I've wished for a real live person to give me a tour of the sky. Skywatch does that for me, so that I can figure out what I'm looking at up there.

Last night when we first got out, Hero wanted me to show him Orion. However, that's a Winter constellation around here, so he wasn't up. We did, however, find the Big Dipper. And with the help of Skywatch, we also figured out Ursa Major. That was particularly exciting to me, since I've known that the Big Dipper is a part of Ursa Major for ages, but had never quite figured out where the larger constellation is. Now I know. We also located the North Star. He wanted me to show him the "South Star, that's opposite." I gave him the short answer; it was bedtime. But we'll be back to the concept.

We've done a lot of reading about Astronomy, but I decided that it's time to take it outside. Hero has been able to find things when I try to show him in the sky, and the boys both love to find the moon. So I'm planning to get outside about once a week. Gotta love homeschool for this kind of thing! Next time, maybe we can find the Little Dipper and Ursa Minor. I'm looking forward to it.