Y’know, just hanging out at the Flandreau Science Center, watching the Christmasy planetarium show. For my astronomy field trip!

Y’know, just hanging out at the Flandreau Science Center, watching the Christmasy planetarium show.

For my astronomy field trip!

A fun story

So, as part of my astronomy class, I have to go out at least once a week, look at the night sky for a half-hour, then write up a brief description in my “Observing Notebook.” On Monday night, she showed us a short (like, two minutes) video showing the major things you could see in the February sky, which included the Orion Nebula. I’d heard of it, but had no idea where it was. Well, this video showed me. And Dr. Meeks told us you could see it with binoculars. Well, my brother has one of my grandpa’s old pairs of binoculars, so when I went to my dad’s last night for dinner, I yoinked them out of Alex’s room. And sure enough, there was this little cloudy blob.

I felt a little guilty about busting into his room to get them when he was staying at my mom’s house, so I texted him and asked if it was ok to use them while I’m in this class. He said sure, so I told him about all the cool things I found with them. And his reaction was basically that it was really awesome. He sounded pretty enthusiastic, but my brother has a fondness for sarcasm that he can disguise very well in texts. So I made sure he was being serious (which he was). And then he asked, “What are those pretty, colorful cloud-things called again?”

“Nebulas. That’s the thing I saw in Orion.” I had told him I saw a nebula in Orion, which he said was cool, but I guess he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“AWESOME!!!” So, I’m sitting here thinking, All this time my brother thought stars were cool, and I’ve been sitting in the backyard or on the driveway all by myself. WTF… So I told him he should come look at the stars with me next time, and he was all excited about it.

So here we are, 16 (almost) and 20 (almost), and only just figured out that in addition to being twins in almost every other regard, we also both like staring at space (not just into it. lol). So, long story short: I HAVE A STARGAZIN’ BUDDY!!!

Bonus points for spending quality time with my baby brother. In the game of life, I think I just leveled up.

Things I’ve Found in the Night Sky (starting Jan. 2010)

*Moon is not included in this list, because, frankly, you’d have to be a retard to not see the moon while it’s in the night sky*

  • Orion
  • Mars
  • Ursa Major
  • Orion Nebula
  • Canis Major
  • Saturn
  • Pleiades

NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY