One more trip around the Sun

Now that we've all survived another trip around the sun, and as we embark on another, entitled, 2013, I want to wish everyone a Happy and Awesome New Solar Revolution

Naturally, being a “new year”, I’ve been having long discussions with Littletree about what a year actually means – one trip around the Sun for the Earth, and how different cultures mark the start of each year at different times, and how different calendars calculate such things. And that rabbit hole of research led us, like so many things, to learning about the Sun, and the NASA website…

She pointed out the same thing I remember saying to my mother when I was about her age – what’s the point of calling it a “new” year, when every day starts a new year. And for each person, a new year really starts on their birthday.

Planetarium at home

Littletree’s passion for astronomy still hasn’t waned and this week she spotted a build-your-own constellation night light projector kit at the local National Geographic shop.

Of course, the “kit” part meant that she actually had to assemble the thing herself

She spent ages poking holes in every individual star (with a little help), which was a great way to get better acquainted with the constellations.

And then we wrangled the globe into shape (fitting tab A into slot B about 97 times)

And finally!

It looks totally cool all lit up, but my little camera isn’t really up to the task of capturing low-light photos

So you can’t get the full effect, but with a 60-second exposure, this is how it looks:

Pretty darn awesome.

Transit of Venus

Home school group this week met up with the Starry Night people (we’ve had group activities with them before) to watch the Transit of Venus.

Littletree was super-excited, we did a lot of reading about Venus and the transit when it passes between the Earth and the Sun.

When we arrived there was quite a crowd, lining up to take turns looking through high-power binoculars with special safety filters.

Littletree was amazed when she got to have a look, and really see the tiny black dot passing in front of the sun

They also had their big, fancy, computer-controlled telescope set up so people could view the sun on a screen.

And little hand-held filters for safe viewing.

Of course after they got a good look at Venus, the kids all ran off to climb trees.

Total eclipse of the moon

For those who have been living under a rock, there was a total lunar eclipse yesterday, visible from Australia, most of Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

Littletree, being obsessed with astronomy, was very keen to see it, but she barely managed to wake up for the 1am totality!

It had been raining all day, and I’d given up hope of getting to see anything, but right when the first shadow was falling over the moon, it cleared up and we had great viewing!

So we set the telescope up

Waited patiently, watching as the Earth’s shadow slowly covered the full moon.

Definitely worthwhile having the telescope as well! Though technically one is not supposed to be able to take photos through a telescope, and clearly these ones didn’t come out so well, you get the idea:

And I’m reminded of 2006 when we went to Turkey to see a total eclipse of the sun at a Rainbow Gathering.

Littletree was terrified of the sun disappearing! She cried through the whole first part, hid in my lap and refused to look at it until the totality was over. And then she was happy again!

World’s Largest Solar System Drive

We’re home again from the Australian Rainbow Family Gathering, which was fantastic, and though winding up, is still going on for anyone able to get out to Glen Davis in the western Blue Mountains.

Littletree and I drove down together (well, I drove, and she was the navigator – she’s learned a lot about reading maps and road signs on this journey)! We took the drive slowly, spending 2 days to drive the 12 hours from home – mostly because we wanted to stop in Coonabarrabran on the way and see the World’s largest scale model of the Solar System – the Virtual Solar System Drive.

It was well worth the slight detour to go see it as well! Littletree has been very passionate about astronomy for a few years now, even to the point of saving up to buy her own telescope.

I’ve gotta say: the Solar System Drive is really cool. It’s a scale model of the solar system on a scale of 1:38million. The Sun is represented by the 37 metre Siding Spring Observatory telescope dome, which is huge.

At this scale, Pluto is around 200km away in Tamowrth and the size of a billiard ball

The earth is about 5 minutes drive from the Sun, and around the size of a Basketball

They actually have set up planets on billboards on all the roads leading to Coonabarrabran and the observatory, as if in orbit, so you can see each planet more than once on different roads (so you can drive out to Dubbo and there’s a Pluto there as well).

Littletree was so excited to see all the planets, and we got to learn a lot about them on the way – as well as getting to take regular stops in the middle of a long drive.

It’s amazing to see the scale of the different planets and really get a feel for just how big everything is, and just how much space there is in space. According to the solar system drive website: “If you’re travelling in your car at 100km/hr along the Solar System Drive, you’d be “virtually” hurtling through space at a million kilometres per second - more than three times faster than the speed of light!”

 

So from the Sun, it takes a minute to get to Mercury

and another minute or two to get to Venus

Before passing by Earth and on to Mars, which is tiny

Then we drove about 20 minutes before coming across the gargantuan Jupiter

Saturn is not only huge, it has rings

Uranus

 

Neptune

and little Pluto at the end. We really got a sense of hurtling through the immenseness of space. Littletree was especially excited to see the telescope itself, though we couldn’t actually look through it.

and the view from the observatory was pretty amazing as well

We had such a great time exploring the solar system!

The Cool Side of the Moon

We finally had a night with clear skies and slightly less cold than usual to take Littletree out to test her telescope. It’s also lucky that we live in the middle of nowhere with very little light pollution.

Without the viewfinder it was pretty hard to find things, but we did manage in the end to have a look at a couple of stars (which still really look like stars with this telescope) and we got a great view of the moon.

I helped Littletree get focussed on the moon, and we were able to see clearly craters and zoom in on stuff – it was great :)

Naturally, we didn’t manage to work out how to extend the legs of the tripod, so it meant crouching on the cold ground – I’m gonna remember to bring out a blanket next time!

With my little camera not having a manual focus, I didn’t really manage to get a nice demo shot, but I did get this image through the telescope, which really doesn’t do the view justice, but you get the idea

Littletree was ecstatic – she spent about an hour (in the freezing cold) watching the moon. She was really excited to watch the moon moving – it took about a minute for it to move right out of the lens. We talked about how far away the moon is and how big the craters are.

This telescope was such a great find – so glad we managed to get a good enough one from a thrift store. Which means now Littletree is busy in her saving enterprises for the next big thing – apparently a trip to India! LOL Now she’s started making and selling organic brownies, though I think it will be a while before she gets on a plane ;)

I love that my child has such a fascinated love of learning; yay unschooling!

Look to the Stars

Littletree has been selling muffins in the market lately to make extra pocket money – her current passion is to get a telescope; she’s been obsessed with astronomy for a couple of years now.

We had expected that a telescope would be a long way off, but the other day in the city, we stopped to browse in an op-shop (charity thrift store), and Lo! there happened to be a telescope for sale – for only $15!

It’s an old Tasco, from the mid-90s I think. Just a simple model, with 30-90x zoom, and the viewfinder is missing, but it still works well, and Purple managed to get it assembled despite not coming with any instructions.

Littletree is over the moon. Well, she’s trying to look at the moon at least.

This morning we took it outside to try it out – Littletree could see little bugs eating leaves on the top of a tree, and cows were clearly visible on the mountain on the other side of the valley.

So far it’s been cloudy overnight, but we’re looking forward to trying it out at night when the moon comes out next :)

Aussie at Last

Yesterday Purple officially became an Australian citizen – we went up to the city for the ceremony, which was kind of funny. Purple got to shake hands with the mayor and receive his certificate.

The first thing Purple said was “Now I can vote him out”. LOL

Since we were all in the city with not much to do, we did some shopping after the ceremony. First we went to an op-shop (charity thrift store) and I scored a bunch of nice green clothes, and Littletree found a telescope!

Not the kind of thing you’d usually expect to find in an op-shop, but there was an old Tasco telescope, still in its box, for $15. She was over the moon!

Her latest saving venture (since the netbook) is to get a telescope. We still haven’t got it properly set up, and there’s a good chance something wont work with it, or it will be too old or crappy, but for now, it’s probably a good starter for her.

Then, just to celebrate Purple becoming an Australian, we bought me a new computer. It’s an Acer TimelineX 4820TG. Which is actually a gift to Purple, since he now no longer needs to sit patiently while I’m tearing my hair out all the time because my old computer wasn’t working. Naturally, a new computer and telescope deserve their own posts – coming soon!

Back from the HBA Conference

I got home early this morning from my awesome adventure down south for the Homebirth Australia Conference. In the last 6 days, I’ve driven around 3200km (2000mi) and attended a 2.5 day conference.

Of course, I made great time, and rushed home to see Littletree, which was great, but now I’m paying for it with having come down with the flu. Purple has made me a wonderful, spicy tomato soup with lots of garlic and my homemade chicken stock.

Anyway, I left after lunch on Wednesday, and stopped for a rest at about 8pm. I slept a few hours, and woke up around midnight, feeling refreshed, and FREEZING – it was 2 degrees (35F)! So I drove onwards… The van was whining a bit, and I realised the battery was draining with the lights and heater on after a few hours, so I stopped to sleep again, making sure I parked in a rest area where there were other cars, lest I couldn’t start again in the morning.

When I woke up, the van started, no problem, so I drove into the next town; Coonabarabran (The astronomy capital of Australia) and stopped to fill the petrol tank.

Coonabarabran has Australia’s largest telescope, and the worlds largest scale model of the solar system – it is spread out over about 200km! I have to bring Littletree out there one day!

My poor van, Sunshine, wouldn’t start again – flat battery.

At least I was lucky enough to have made it to the town! and more luck: I had broken down right in front of the NRMA (roadside assistance club)! The NRMA guy came to jump start me, and I said I didn’t think it was charging, and it was probably a problem with the alternator belt.

The NRMA mechanics looked at it, decided indeed, there was a problem with the alternator. While I waited, I browsed Coonabarabran, and found this awesome dolls house for Littletree in the OpShop, for only $5!

Back at the NRMA, it took about 5 hours to work out that the problem wasn’t the belt, but the alternator, which they pronounced dead. Apparently, a replacement alternator could be found in Dubbo; 2 hours south, but not until the next day.

I politely declined the offer of a (NRMA-paid-for) hotel room and a 24 hour delay, and got them to charge my battery – I then set out for Dubbo with the number of the place that had the alternator, not daring to switch off the engine for anything, to find an auto electrician who could fix it.

In Dubbo, I pulled into the first auto electrician I saw on the road, and begged them to help me… Maccas Auto Electrical – true legends! They not only agreed – at 3pm – to do the job, the apprentice quickly worked out that my alternator was not dead, but just the belt (oh the irony!), and replaced it for me.

On the road again by 5pm! No thanks to the NRMA!

Anyway, even despite the 8-hour-breakdown, I arrived to Echuca by 11am the next day. Since I had nothing much to do till the conference registration/ cocktail evening started, I browsed around the op-shops and walked around, and finally, went out to the resort where the conference was to mooch about till starting time.

Another moment of Luck! Anne Frye, who is somewhat of a midwifery-guru to me, having authored my bible: Holistic Midwifery, was also mooching around with not much to do.

Like a total idiot, I went up to her and blathered “OMG you’re Anne Frye! I’m such a big fan!”, She was really nice and we ended up chatting, and we sat together at dinner the next evening as well :D

The way home was somewhat uneventful. I drove all day yesterday (which was my birthday), stopping for stretching breaks in all the little towns, browsing in the op shops – I scored some great stuff; small remote towns always have the best op shops! I passed 177777.7km on my odometer

and was treated to a spectacular birthday sunset, complete with sunset rainbow

It’s nice to be home.

Littlegeek

Littletree got her netbook this week!

I’m so proud of her managing to save up so much :) She’s been so determined and focused. In the end, I was lucky enough to get a 10% off voucher for a store, so we could get a slightly better model than she’d been looking at. It wasn’t pink (seems pink ones are a bit harder to get), but silver was the second best and definitely a good deal.

It came quicker than expected too; just three days after we ordered it. Here’s Littletree collecting the package at the post office:

And once we got home and opened the box

Littletree unpacked the box so reverently, and checked all the pieces.

We sat together and read the manual while the battery was charging and then went through set-up

The first thing Littletree said was “where’s the Firefox button?” So I showed her how to open Explorer to download Firefox. Then she spent an hour personalising Firefox.

She made her email inbox her homepage, saved a bunch of pink, sparkly personas, and bookmarked all her favourite websites. Then we made her a Skype account and she took her computer to her bedroom, and called me on my computer in the living room. We had a long conversation, pretending that she was travelling in India and calling me to say hi (and I thought it would be at least another ten years before I started having that conversation!).

Then she emailed Purple, and Googled images of “fire ants”, did some Reading Eggs, and set up a network to transfer .avi files from my computer to hers so she can watch her favourite movies (the netbook doesn’t have an optical drive).

My goodness! I’ve created a geek!

I had expected that once Littletree got the computer, she’d be absorbed in it and I wouldn’t see her much for a while, but she’s still doing all the creative, fun stuff she was doing before (reading, drawing, make-believe games, dancing, playing in the garden, doing her “homework book” playing with the neighbourhood kids, riding bike). She does spend a fair bit of time on her computer, but not anywhere near as much time as I spend on mine *blush*.

And a huge thanks to the people who helped her get it :)

Littletree got her pocket money today, the first one in months that hasn’t gone straight into her savings account. She went and treated herself to an ice block at the shop, and then put the rest aside, saying she wants to start saving up for a telescope!

Starry, starry day

The crew from Starry Night came to our home school group today for an astronomy workshop. They come with an inflatable dome that has a projection of the constellations on it, which was really fantastic!

I was organising the day, which I took on since Littletree is so fascinated with astronomy at the moment, so we got to watch them setting up, which was cool.

I took a bunch of photos of them setting up, of course:

Something about being homeschoolers, most of the group were drifting in a bit late, but in the end everyone arrived just in time, and Marie gave a talk about planets and stars with the kids.

We all (well, most of us), posed out the front for a group photo too.

Entering the dome was very womb-like 

But once we were in there it was much roomier than it seemed :)

Marie did a great job of explaining the constellations, and the kids all had a great time, shouting out answers. 

Of course, once the lights went out, we couldn't take more photos

I think my favourite part was when Marie asked a question, and one of the kids (don't know who it was in the dark), answered correctly, and Marie asked how he knew the answer. The reply came,

"I'm home schooled and I love learning" :)