Friday, July 23, 2010

Dancing with the Stars

Last night was a good night to go seeing the stars and planets. Mercury, which can only be seen 12-14 days in the entire year, happened to be visible this week and we were lucky enough to see it. Jamie Lombardi showed us this as well as Venus, Mars, and Saturn. Even though they looked like bright discs, it was still really cool to be able to see them. Saturn was especially amazing since you could see it had a thin little dash-like thing around it (Saturn's rings). And if that weren't enough, we were taken inside by Mr. Lombardi senior to see an antique telescope that was 110 years old! It was powerful enough so that the moon looked like a close-up of a white tennis ball with a bunch of craters on it. After that, Jamie Lombardi zoomed in to the Ring Nebula (400 light-years away) with a really powerful telescope. It looked like a blackish blob, but again, it was really cool to see.




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