M13 Geek Cluster

Posted on | August 10, 2008 |

As part of my long-term plan to put my daughter squarely on the path to geekdom, I packed up the car tonight and headed south to George Observatory, kid in tow. It was one of our quintessentially great daddy-daughter outings: “so bad, it’s good” Chinese buffet for dinner and a long drive through a burnt orange Texas sunset marked by several wrong turns, missed exits, and one unfortunate encounter between a Prius a slow moving armadillo. We arrived at the park just after sundown–10 minutes before ticket sales stopped.

Q was visibly excited by the whole affair, asking questions, talking to the docents and staying thoroughly engaged with all things astronomical despite the balmy weather and merciless mosquitoes.

We spent the first hour watching an orientation presentation and checking out views of celestial objects through telescopes that were set up around the patio. Between the HMNS scopes and the hobbyists, we got to see M15, the Dumbbell Nebula (though not very clearly), and a great view of Jupiter with three moons visible. One of the hobbyists had a rad computer-controlled rig that output a video image, and we spent a good 15-20 minutes watching him pan across the moon’s surface and enthusiastically point out features like Plato, the Lunar Alps and the Sea of Tranquility (”and that is where Neil Armstrong walked on the moon!”).

The highlight of the night, though, was a viewing of Messier 13 through the observatory’s 36 inch research telescope. It was inspiring, and led to some great ride-home discussion about time, space and how wild it was to think about the fact that the light hitting our eyes had been traveling through space for some 33 million years.

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