Dippers and Clouds

When I was in college I had a chance to attend an astronomy talk. The idea was to be outside looking at the stars. Sadly the weather had other ideas and instead we spent the evening looking at the presenter's slide show (actual slides at that).

While his talk was interesting, there was one part that I found disheartening; every time he showed a cool nebula or whatnot he'd tell us the price of the equipment he used to see it.

I work with children. Most children don't have $20,000 to drop on a fancy telescope with all the bells and whistles.

I made a decision that day to focus almost exclusively on naked-eye astronomy; what can show a child that they could then share with their parents? I only use three pieces of "special equipment", a green laser pointer, a big pair of binoculars (a gift from a former boss... only used for looking at the moon), and my sturdy tripod (because those binoculars are HEAVY!).

My photography comes into play with the pre-outdoor talk. I'm slowly building a library of constellations and such that the kids will actually be able to see, in the location they are are going to be seeing it. (It's been my experience that showing people what you are about to show helps them to be able to see what they are going to be seeing in the wild easier). Last night was about the Big Dipper.

#night #evening #tuesday #stars #astrophotography #february #big-dipper