Friday night we were invited over to a friend's house to watch a movie and have some treats. During the movie one of the parents of the other children let us know that the local Mudgee astronomer's group was set up in the middle of town. They were sharing their telescopes with anyone who stopped by and were there to discuss what could be seen. The boys and I were all in.

Here are the boys chatting about what they could see through the 12 " diameter large telescope.

It was quite the discussion. The timing was quite perfect as earlier in the day Monkey had made his presentation to his school class about the Canadarm and the International Space Station. It had flown over about an hour before we'd arrived, so unfortunately we missed taking that in.

Note that it is about 9 pm and at 16 degrees they were quite happily looking at the stars whilst in their pyjamas. Big C was practically dancing he was so happy to see things through a real telescope!

Dave brought his camera over to the lens and was able to get a decent photo of what we were all able to see. In the middle is Jupiter (through the lens itself you could actually make out its characteristic rings of dust that move about the gaseous surface). To the right are two of it's larger moons, Ganymede and Io. Europa had moved in behind the planet just before we arrived. A third moon could be seen in the lens far to the left, though it didn't make it into the photo. 

 Nearly as impressive were the views of the moon that we could see in the smaller telescopes. There was much more light being reflected, so photos were tougher, however in the middle of the moon you could really make out the massive craters on the surface.

 On the way back to the car the boys were quite enthused about our impromptu astronomy adventure. Here's a quick photo of what we could see from the ground without a telescope. The moon is a little blurry and to the left while Jupiter appears as a small dot over on the right.

The boys assured us that they'd love to go the observatory in the hills just outside out of town later in the year to look at the sky again. For now, it was off to bed!!