Why I Love Astronomy
Astronomy is one of my passions. I am deeply in love with space. It’s no wonder I’m writing a novel that is about space exploration and the mysteries of the universe.
So when I got back home tonight, I saw that an extremely bright object was standing out in the night sky, so I grabbed the telescope. I thought, by the strong luminosity, that it was Venus. I had been wanting to see Venus on the scope for a long time, never getting the proper chance. I fit the 25mm lens and looked through it.
It was definitely a planet. When I see stars through the scope, they never get bigger as I change lens, they just lose luminosity and become small dots, since they’re just too far away from lenses to make any difference. This planet got definitely bigger, and I could even see some stars behind it that weren’t visible to the naked eye.
I changed to the 12.5 mm lens and saw that those weren’t stars. They were too well-aligned around the planet to be stars.
Those were moons. But Venus doesn’t have any moons, just an asteroid that acts like one. And Mars has only two moons, Deimos and Phobos. This planet had FOUR perfectly visible moons, plus it was white-ish.
What white-ish planet has four visible moons?
Jupiter.
My inner astronomer immediately had multiple orgasms.
I changed to the 4mm lens. The moons were very visible now, and while Jupiter was still just a white dot, it was a BIG white dot — still too far for its luminosity to allow me to see its features, but goddamn it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen on my telescope except for the moon.
I tried taking a photograph. Failed horribly. The approximation was too close, I so much as brushed against the scope and the image shook like the camera in a Peter Berg film. In fact, Earth’s rotation kept making the bloody thing leave the viewfinder before I could set up the camera, and finding it again was a bitch. So I had to give up for now.
I didn’t know Jupiter could be seen this well with my telescope. I wonder how well I can see Venus or Mars, if I can see Jupiter. I don’t even know if it was Jupiter, to be sure — but four visible, large moons (out of its 63)? Has to be.
I fucking love astronomy.
5 months ago • 3 notes
