Nature in the Neighborhood #4

 

Photo Credit

We didn't make it out to the pond yet this week. I'd planned to do it Thursday, but I got puked on instead. Maybe Saturday afternoon, if Hero doesn't get to go out with the Bee Man.  However, we did head outside for some stargazing again, finally. It's been a long time since we had clear skies at night to go look at. I think that, in the past six weeks, there was one Saturday that would have worked, but with church on an early schedule right now staying out late to look at the sky wasn't a very good idea.

But we did finally get to do it one day this week. Hero was able to find the Big Dipper. I tried to show him Ursa Major, but it just wasn't happening, and he got frustrated. I'm not sure how to do it better, so that he can actually see stuff. Of course, Dragon wanted to come out with us, and he wasn't feeling good (he puked the next day), so it wasn't our best trip to the backyard to star gaze. But we did do it! And that was nice. I went out again after the boys were asleep and looked some more. Saw Saturn, Arcturus, and Spica. And also another that I can't remember the name of anymore. My phone has an app called "Sky Walk" that is so useful for this sort of thing! I'm learning a lot, one star and one constellation at a time.

Photo Credit

And, when I came inside I looked up Ursa Major in my various astronomy books trying to learn a little about what I can see from my back deck with just the naked eye. Turns out that Ursa Major has some 95 galaxies that we could have a look at, if we had a 10 inch telescope. I bought a telescope a while back at a yard sale. But it turns out that telescopes are a thing where you'd better spend some bucks, or just skip it. The cheap ones are... cheap. So I guess I'll have to save my pennies. Someday I want to be able to see at least a few of those 95 galaxies.

How about you? Did you make it outside this week? What did you see? Link up, grab the code and add it to your post, and let's get hopping!



To play, here is what you do:

1. Go outside. Take you kids & have fun. While you're out, try to find some "interesting thing." Or plan a whole nature walk with goals and everything. Or somewhere in between. Have fun. Take a picture or two if you like.

2. Blog about it.

3. Come and link up with the linky. It will give you code, which you can add to your post if you like. This will allow us to "hop" from one blog to another without needing to constantly come back here, which I think is awesome!

4. If you want to be reminded about Nature in the Neighborhood (and other posts from my blog, as well as interesting articles & such that I don't have time to actually blog about) then pop over to Facebook and "like" Baby Steps Blog.

Thanks for playing!