Explorers

On October 29, 2009, the Explorers met for an evening of checking out the moon with a telescope. Unfortunately clouds put a big damper on the views, but there were still a few glimpses to be seen.

The evening started with an activity designed to demonstrate why the moon’s phases, or visible shape, seems to change throughout the month. Several kids formed a circle to become the “Earth,” while others linked as the “moon.” The Explorers found that these two bodies perform a fairly complicated dance in space as they each spin, or rotate, while also moving around each other, or revolving—while at the same time the whole two-body system is busy chugging its way around the sun.

Then it was time to look at the telescope and what it does. A telescope is really a light collector. It uses a large lens or mirror to collect a larger amount of light than the human eye can take in alone. Then, the mirrors and lenses work to “shrink” that light so that it can fit and be focused into the pupil of someone’s eye. In essence, this allows someone to view things as if their own eye was now the size of the telescope’s main mirror or lens.

The students then took turns looking at the waxing gibbous moon (a few days short of full) through the telescope. As mentioned before, the high thin clouds hampered the view, perhaps leading some students to the conclusion that the moon is in fact naturally blurry. Mr. Ramsey reminded them that there are some things that are simply beyond our control, and the state of the skies is most definitely one of them. The club plans to hold another stargazing session next spring—with luck it will be a more successful, and less cloud-intensive, affair.

Check out the Gallery to see a few photos from our fall stargazing session.