I got my telescope out on Monday night to show Venus to the grandkids (Elisse's family). Sarah said, "It looks like a banana!" It was the perfect object to look at on a short attention span. Even Elisse and Garry were asking good questions, like "What makes it a crescent?" "Why is it so bright, when so little of the surface is illuminated?" "Why is it so much bigger than it was when you showed it to us in early February?" And after the naked-eye "star" disappeared into a cloud, "How come we can still see it in the telescope?"
The next night, I took the telescope over to Shauna's, because a few days ago Cole was asking to look at Venus. So Cole and Kylee and Katie all got to see it too (along with Spencer and Shauna, of course). We also took the time to find Saturn, the Orion Nebula and a few star clusters. Hopefully, I'm sowing seeds of interest for new generations of star gazers. Now is a great time to view Venus: crescent phase, good spring weather! (While both last.)
Part of this text was posted on the Salt Lake Astronomical Society's daily email, and received good comments. The big photo on top is one I found on Google, and is very close to the view we had through the telescope. The photo below is one I took by simply placing my point-and-shoot digital camera up against the telescope eyepiece. Something about my low-tech method makes Venus look fatter than it actually appeared as we looked at it through the telescope.
