June 01, 2007

Planetary Night

Last night, as I was arriving home, I remembered that the moon was full that night. I searched for her and when I found it I saw there was a planet beside her. Thought it was Venus, but I remembered that Venus did "stood" by the moon but on may 20th... so it couldn't be. As I arrived, I spotted Venus, very big and bright, to the west... therefore, the other planet got to be Jupiter... Saturn being in luck.

I ran up stairs and talked by dad to get the telescope and find out. We first locked Venus, for it was getting pretty close (and fast) to the horizon. Being honest, our telescope ain't much of a thing... (but it does have a telescope/cpu interaction... with some software I haven't even loaded... :P) so fixxing on a planet is really hard, but last night I did. After chasing Venus for a while, I locked it with the weakest of our lenses and little by little I switched to the biggest of them. Fot the first time, I got to se craters on Venus surface. It looks kind like the moon, but blueish... and far more death. The funny thing was that being too close to Earth, it really move too fast.

Once we saw Venus, we radically change the view to the East-Southeast where the so far Unknown planet and the Moon were.
Well, if Venus was hard too spot.. this planet really made it almost impossible. But after almos 15 minutes (which in sky observation is a lifetime) I got to lock it. One bright planet and four gorgeously aligned moons. Jupiter.... quite and spectacle. Seeing this so far away planet, as if it where a half moon... with those tiny half moon around it. Perfectly aligned, in 45° counter clockwise from the planet.

As it was late, we decided we would just take a glanze of the moon... And I must say that for me, there's nothing more peaceful that seeing this gorgeous being in a telescope... each sea... each crater... I even focused a specific crater, so I could see the details within it.

I feel kindda weird still... it's an expirience that feels so right, so natural...

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