Growing up my family did a lot of boating on the weekends. The sailing (and swimming) during the day was, of course, great, but one of my favorite parts was hanging out on deck after dark. The lakes we went to were outside the city enough to see a lot more stars than at home. We would all get excited when someone pointed out a satellite and we could find it, and likewise we would be jealous of anyone who saw a shooting star that we did not get to see. My parents taught my brother and I a few constellations, so we would always find them if they were up. I will never forget the absolutely amazing view we saw of the Milky Way on one moonless trip to Lake Powell. My mind was blown by the sheer number of stars we could see and how it actually looked like a galaxy.
Astronomy is a mind-blowing science. I know all of science can be extremely interesting, but to me, at least, every fact that we know about space stretches my imagination in wonderful ways. As a business major in college, I was lucky enough to avoid those boring/daunting science classes like biology or chemistry, and took astronomy. Yeah, the lab was at night, which seemed like a hassle at first, but it turned out to be one of my favorite classes. Most of what I learned from that year is removed from my memory, but the wonder (and interest) is still there.
Tonight brought back memories of that class and of the many nights out on the water looking upward. But let me go backward a few weeks. When first asked what he wanted to be for Halloween, Owen said he wanted to wear a gray sheet. He said he could be night. I was a little confused at first, but then figured out where he got that from. Owen has been watching and reading Peanuts cartoons lately; in the Halloween TV special, all of the kids were ghosts, wearing white sheets over their heads. (Poor Charlie Brown had trouble with the scissors and instead of having two eye holes had holes all over his sheet.) I thought that Owen's costume choice was a little odd at first, but I went with it, figuring he would want to change it a couple of days later. I told him we could get glow in the dark star stickers and put them on the sheet, an idea which he liked. Well, he hasn't changed his mind, and despite not wanting to go shopping with me to get the stars, he seems excited about it.
I can't remember where I saw it, but when I realized there was a meteor shower this weekend, I started thinking about how I could manage to get away from the city lights to see it. Since the prime time to see the shower is after midnight I knew it wouldn't involve the kids. But maybe some of my parent friends and I could sneak out of town after the kids went to bed and see some of the shower and then come home. Or maybe we could camp somewhere close with the older kids and the adults could stay up late. I started researching locations and came across the Lost Dutchman website advertising a Star Party. Camping didn't work out, so I knew I wouldn't be able to see the shower, but the Party looked interesting. So we went.
Owen has the "Here Comes Science" CD/DVD by They Might Be Giants, which has several space-themed songs. His favorite is "How Many Planets?", and he also likes "What is a Shooting Star?". We told him there was a meteor shower this weekend, and sold the Star Party to him by saying he would see Jupiter. So he seemed excited, but when we got in the car to go to Lost Dutchman (about a 40 minute drive from our house), he started falling asleep. I was worried he was going to be cranky and uninterested (and/or afraid of the dark). But he did fine. Our friends Nate and Beck ended up going, which I think helped Owen's enjoyment level (I know it did ours). [A big thanks to Nate for giving up his winning raffle ticket so Owen could win a small toy airplane (the guy doing the presentation was also some kind of plane expert).] Despite the presentation being long and above his head (both literally and figuratively), Owen didn't really complain the whole night. They had a neat telescope that they were able to hook up to the video screen and showed us some amazing views of the craters on the moon. They used (really expensive; I think he said $700) laser pointers that you could see 50 miles into the sky with to point out different stars and constellations. I was busy keeping an eye on Sophie (who constantly wanted to move around); several times I looked over at Owen in Keith's arms, expecting him to be falling asleep. Instead he was looking upward into the sky. Keith said Owen wanted him to hold him laying back so he could see up easier. At one point during the presentation I took Sophie into the parking lot because she was being noisy and came across someone looking through powerful binoculars on a tripod, so I started talking to him. It turns out he was scoping out the "competition" because he was doing similar presentations once a month starting in November at Lost Dutchman. He showed me several things through the binoculars and then I brought Owen over to see. Owen seemed genuinely interested, at least for a little while. Jupiter didn't come up over the horizon until 8:30pm, and since seeing Jupiter was the main reason we came, we had to wait to see it. Actually that was a bit disappointing because the view through the telescope wasn't that much different than with the naked eye. But Owen didn't seem upset about that.
What kind of effect tonight will have on Owen remains to be seen. Maybe it's just a better understanding of what his Halloween costume is. But we will definitely be heading back to Lost Dutchman for more presentations. One of the awesome things about being a parent is passing on things that interest you to your kids. If I can pass on even a small portion of my wonderment about the night sky, then I will have done my job.
