stargazing

Why am I blarging at 12:30 AM, an hour when all mature and responsible adults should be fast asleep in order to rise early, invigorated and ready to milk the cows and shuck the hens? I'll tell you why: I've been sitting on a folding chair in my pasture, beholding the heavens for the last three hours, and it's made me giddy as a schoolgirl.

Because I was not already nerdy enough, I've discovered a recent interest in astronomy. Having recently acquired a small 90mm reflector telescope, a sturdy equatorial mount and a handful of eyepieces, I've recently immersed myself in all things astronomical.

I have done a smattering of planetary and lunar observing in the last few weeks, including a couple of stabs at astrophotography:

This is Saturn.

This is Earth's moon.

Tonight, though, I had a new, ambitious goal: deep sky objects. Deep sky objects are things like galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters. My telescope is not a super powerful telescope, so I spent the evening doing research and looking at star charts choosing a few I thought I would be able to see even through my small 90mm tube. When Andrea went to bed, I set up out back and waited for it to get a bit darker.

My first target was the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra. In hindsight, this was a poor first choice, because it's really, really small and hard to find. But after a dozen or so false starts and about 45 minutes of star hopping, I finally found it. I was seriously super excited, like, high-fiving myself and stuff. Here's sort of what it looked like through my telescope (although I did not take this picture):

 

Like I said, it was really faint in my telescope, but there it was, right where it should be. I was excited not only to be able to see it, but to actually be able to make out some color in it. Super cool.

Next I decided to tackle something a little bigger. This one was easy, and I could actually find it in my binoculars first in order to orient myself with the telescope. It was the Andromeda Galaxy  in the Andromeda constellation. I'm sure you've seen pictures of spiral galaxies, but what you've seen is after a lot of processing of the image. Just looking in a telescope with your regular eyes it doesn't really look like that. It looks more like a smudge. But it was a cool smudge. It looked something like this:

which was pretty cool, considering especially that it's 2.5 million light years away from us and contains a trillion stars, which is twice as many as our wussy Milky Way.

Two down. Now time to try a couple of sweet, sweet globular clusters.

First I tried M-4 in the constellation Scorpius. This wasn't too hard to find (it took me about 10 minutes), but I wasn't as super duper impressed with it because it was pretty dim and hard to make out the details of. It looked kinda like this:

 

I almost decided to call it a night at that point, but instead I decided to go for one more. I turned westward to the constellation Hercules. After about 15 minutes of hopping back and forth between η Hercules and ζ Hercules, I found my target, M-13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. This was my favorite of the night, actually. It was really spectacular:

 

Pretty cool, huh?

Hey, you... wake up. Fine, fine, I know this was probably super boring for you to read, so if you made it this far then I guess you have passed the Test of True Friendship. I won't make it a habit of posting every single time I look upwards, but tonight was special for me, as it was my first time doing serious celestial observation. I learned a lot and was astonished at these breathtaking, beautiful objects that have been above me in the sky my whole life without me even knowing they existed other than in the most general sense.

Anyway, it's super late now. Good night.

... all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

Alma 30:44

Summer project: chair swing

When we moved into our house nine years ago, the previous owners had a wicker chair suspended on ropes in the back yard. That chair swing met its demise last year when it finally fell apart. Since then, I've been plotting to make a more durable chair swing to replace it.

I bought a kitchen chair from D.I., but that's as far as I got at that time. After that, we got our new puppy, and she thought the chair made a good chew toy. Gratefully, most of the chewing was done on the legs, which were cut off anyway.

The chair sat in the garage, then the shop, until I finally got the project underway. It took much longer than it should have because I've been distracted by numerous things, but today I drilled the holes, installed the hardware, put on many coats of clear finish, and called my dad to help me tie the knots. The girls tried out the finished product this evening.

I used the leftover paint from our front door, and of course I had to change the location of the swing so Peach wouldn't chew it. The swing is in our side yard next to the fire pit.

Bekah swings, Ana waits her turn, and Seth climbs the willow.

Winnie, who is usually has a healthy fear of swings, approved of this one.

Zooing

Aunt Rachel and her kids met us at the zoo this morning so the cousins could check out the animals together. It turned out to be a good day for the animals--most of them were active, including the red panda (that I've never seen do anything besides sleep) and the snow leopard cubs, which were the cutest things there (besides our kids, of course).

Rebekah took charge of Gwendolen and led her all through the zoo. Here they are at the flamingos.

Kelsey and Analee looking at the otters.

I told them to pretend they were chickens. I have no idea what Analee is doing.

Rebekah photobombing the little ones in the nest.

Cooper feeding the goat.

Four cute girls on a deer statue.

Baby Hudson was very well behaved.

Aunt Rachel helping her older kids on the tiger.

Miriam on the lion.

A scared Analee with her head in the lion's mouth.

Sweet sisters sharing a tiger ride.

To see more such pictures, start here.

Scott reunion in Washington

Now that my oldest brother Ethan lives only nine hours away (as compared to 22 hours when he was in Texas), all of the other Scotts were invited to descend on their house in Richland, Washington, for a family reunion. They have a big, beautiful house, but not big enough to have 17 extra people sleep there, so we hauled our trailer and parked it on the one flat spot of land next to their house (and put the chocks in so it wouldn't roll down the hill) to house our family of six for four days.

On the way over, we split up the driving into two days and stopped in Baker City, Oregon, for the night on July 2. The girls did well in the somewhat-cramped truck; it helped that we had dozens of movies available on the laptop, a bag full of books and another full of activities. It was our first stay at an RV camp, and we found it to be a pleasant experience.

We got to Ethan's house right before noon on July 3 and waited for the other Scotts to arrive. Once they did, it was basically a non-stop party for three days. On Thursday we:

... swam in the pool,

Winnie throwing the ball into the pool to see it splash.

Andrea climbing onto the floating orca. It was harder than it looks.

Analee and the crocodile sneaking up on Rebekah.

... played on the giant slip and slide,

Rebekah and Seth headed down the slide.

Analee going down.

Seth getting even dirtier in the grass/mud at the end of the slide. He proved to be the king of the slip and slide; he went farther than anyone else and even headed up in the ditch a time or two.

... and roasted marshmallows for s'mores.

Mason, Andrea, Ellie, Shelby and Seth around the fire pit.

On Friday (the 4th of July), we:

... played with cousins,

 Bennet, Rebekah, Miriam and Ellie playing with toys while Analee and Grandma Scott make funny faces in a workbook and Andrea checks her email.

 Winnie the xylophonist.

Miriam and Ellie with cars.

... attended the parade in Kennewick,

Analee petting a tiny pony.

Andrea handing out gummy green army men to Uncle T.

Winnie eating said army men.

Rebekah, Seth and Aunt Teressa watching the parade.

... ate lunch on the patio,

Miriam with her peanut butter sandwich, Cheetos and grapes.

... swam in the pool some more,

Rebekah after retrieving the ring from the deepest part of the pool (about 5' or so).

Analee taking Matthew around the pool while Aunt Annie and Aunt Teressa watch.

Uncle Jon getting ready to throw Rebekah through the air. Uncle Jon got a complete upper-body workout throwing those kids around the pool.

... watched Despicable Me 2 on Seth's phone,

Mason, Spencer, Sam, Analee and Miriam crowded around Andrea holding Seth's phone and playing 2048 on her own phone. Miriam had a fever that day, so we had her stay out of the sun and the pool. After watching the movie on the phone, she fell asleep on the couch.

... played with sparklers,

Analee dancing with her sparkler.

... got nails painted,

Aunt McKall, Analee, Rebekah, Aunt Terssa, Libby, Aunt Annie and Shelby getting ready to give/receive manicures.

... jumped on the trampoline,

Sam, Ellie, Uncle Jon and Bennet playing "crack the egg" with Rebekah.

... watched Uncle T's quadcopter,

 

Rebekah and Ellie chasing the "drone."

 ... watched the first half of The Lego Movie on the outside wall of the house,

We were waiting for the fireworks to start.

... and watched the fireworks from the yard/deck.

People in Richland, West Richland, Pasco and Kennewick fire off some huge fireworks, almost all of which can be seen from Ethan and Teressa's house.

On Saturday, we:

... hiked up Badger Mountain,

 Bennet, Uncle T, Rebekah, Grandma Scott, Analee, Aunt McKall and Andrea taking a break on the hike. It was blasted hot and there was no shade, so most of the kids only went a mile up.

... watched the rest of The Lego Movie inside,

Analee, Shelby, Sam, Uncle Ethan, Grandma Scott, Ellie, Rebekah, Libby, Uncle T and Aunt McKall sprawled out on the couches/floor.

... went to a trampoline park,

Miriam leaping into the foam cub pit.

Andrea playing dodgeball.

Seth smiling because he just got Andrea out.

Rebekah doing a flip into the cube pit.

Analee sliding down the tramp wall.

... swam in the pool some more and played volleyball (not pictured).

On Sunday, our family got up early, ate breakfast and hooked the trailer back up to the truck. We got an early start (8 a.m.) and only took 10.5 hours (including gas stops, rest stops, meal stops, etc.) to make it home. Miriam still had her fever (it lasted for five days and turned out to be something viral) on the ride home, so she spent a lot of the time watching movies and laying her head on a pillow. Winnie napped better on the way home than on the way over, so that was a relief as well. Seth was a champ pulling the trailer up the hill between La Grande and Pendleton.

Now that we know we can survive a long road trip in the truck with the trailer, I foresee more such excursions in our future. And we're grateful for Ethan and Teressa's hospitality while we stayed with them. I know our girls made some fun memories with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents while we were there.

Too see more such pictures, start here.