Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Venus Eclipse

I woke up this morning to Chance standing by my bed whispering "Mom,   Mom,  Mom!"
This is not unusual so I mumbled a muffled "What Chance?"  
"Guess what I'm gonna be when I grow up?"  
"What?"  I smile.
Chance, Caib, Aubree and Oaklee all slept out on the trampoline last night They watched the stars, found the big dipper and the North star.  And apparently sparked another interest in Chance and his scientific mind ."I'm going to be an astronaut and go to every planet in our Solar System. " He replies with absolute surety.
"Well why don't you run down and get your books on our Solar system then." I yawn as I flip over and try to catch a few more minutes of sleep.  That was all I got because in exactly a few minutes Chance was Back with three books on stars, Solar systems, and Planets.   


So then......
 I was a bit discouraged when I heard about the Eclipse happening and we had no way to see it.  But then I happened to turn on the news and they suggested turning a telescope backwards and projecting it on to a white surface.  Caib grabbed a plate and I grabbed the spotting scope.  So look really close at the bottom of the light circle and there is a pin prick of dark.  That's Venus.



Here's our set up.  It worked really well and after a few seconds of viewing Venus as it traveled across the sun I patted myself on the back for being a great mom, just like my mom.  and I rushed the boys in to get ready for their Father Son outing at the park.  Chance was enthralled for those few seconds and......Who knows...Maybe we have a future astronaut on our hands....Whatever he ends up doing I have no doubt that it will be some sort of scientific occupation.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is very cool!

Jenny said...

Cool! And I didn't even have to have you point the dot out!

MJ Davis said...

That is so cool to know that will work. Not that I have a scope! :-)