Waxing Gibbous

After several days of gray skies, last night the clouds slipped away leaving a small waxing gibbous moon and all of its companions. The telescope I had borrowed from my astronomy club was still sitting, waiting for me, in the front porch. I slipped into my winter coat, grabbed Star Watch and a couple of flashlights (one red so that it would not affect my night vision), and left the house, lugging the telescope down the lane.

At first it was hard to see much. The sensor light came on as I walked away from the house. The night was a little balmy and not as cold as I had expected. The moon was bright enough that I did not need to use my flashlight and the light gravel in the drive marked my path.

I chose to set the telescope in the shadow of the pines so that I would not be working within full view of the bright moon. A large moon makes it hard to see the rest of the sky; even at one day past 1st quarter, the moon was bright enough to make the rest of the sky dim.

I adjusted the tripod, and opened my book: Cassiopeia. What I had not known was that the finderscope would require my shoving my face into the body of the telescope to be able to see through it. In order to stand back and get the telescope into the right position, I had to kneel on the gravel. After several minutes, I decided to loosen a bolt and slip the scope around so that I could use my right eye in the finderscope. Hmmm. Not much better. Adjustments. Smoosh. Ouch—sore knee. Grunt. Smoosh. Ah! A star. Now let’s jump to the next…. Smoosh…. equatorial mount adjustment when I’m use to an altazimuth… At this time Shakespeare decided he wanted attention. He began to climb my leg. “Move, cat!” Smoosh. Adjust. “Move, CAT!” Do I need to turn this knob left or right? Oh, yeah…the other way. “MOVE, CAT!” Now does this flip the view upside down AND left to right or just left to right… Anything in the eyepiece? No. Kick cat gently down the hill.

Sigh. O.K. There is the Pleiades. Let’s go take a look at THAT!

The Pleides in all its splendor was more than willing to cooperate! And then I navigated to the Andromeda Galaxy, and I stared at it for several minutes, taking in the small glowing sphere inside the eyepiece. Sigh. To think that I can observe a galaxy so far away with this small uncooperative scope!

The only object I could see in the western sky was the moon…and I was not interested in viewing the mountains and “lakes” of that large barren land…so I slipped Star Watch into my pocket, checked that my flashlights were there, hefted the telescope onto my shoulder and the cats and I walked slowly back to the house, satisfied that I had spent some time observing the glories of the heavens.

If the skies are such a wonder, what must He who made them be?