Night Sky over the Fenton Inn

Being in the mountains at 2000 ft elevation we can enjoy beautiful views of the night sky. Just another night  we had a very clear night sky  with a new moon, the stars, Jupiter and its four moons that were on display for our guests that brought with them a high powered telescope and knowledge of the night sky.

Jupiter was up directly over head as the night sky slowly darkened.  As much fun as the telescope was, the reclining chairs and the high powered binoculars were ever better.  I was surprised how many different satellites were passing over head each night, invisible with out the binoculars.  Most of the suburban and urban world has too much light pollution to see many stars and most days people are so busy with life to take the time to look up from their phones to take in the night sky.

The telescope set up to view the moons of Jupiter.  Being at medieval village, I couldn’t help but think about the first views of the universe with the discovery of curved lenses.  Suddenly the inventions of the telescope and microscope showed the universe was vast beyond our grasp, and made up of parts smaller than we could imagine. 

Even in our high tech age, the light from a distant star, that traveled for a million years to get to this spot, is still exciting to see.

 

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