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!