Field Trip: 6/24

Two things I need to remind myself after today’s outing:

1. Whenever we go to somewhere that has potentially gorgeous photo subject matter, I should double-check to make sure I remembered the good camera. Which I did not.

2. If I ever complain that I live in a rural town where there’s nothing to do, I need to remind myself that, with a little digging, we can uncover little gems like the one we visited today.

Today’s trip? The local observatory. But not just any observatory, one with one of the oldest telescopes of its kind in the country. Since I’m a designer who has a great appreciation for how people made mechanical things work back in the day, as opposed to someone who actualy has a great deal of interest in astronomy, this observatory is a perfect fit for me.

Now you might be thinking that really old telescopes and small children are a terrible match, but it actually turned out amazingly well. Our guide, Dean, tailored the program to suit the fidget level of our kids. After a quick power-point presentation about the planets, everyone got to practice looking through cardboard telescopes before we graduated to a small real one.

Then he led us up to the two big telescopes. Particularly with the old wooden telescope, I was amazed by the detail and craftsmanship. All motion is controlled by ropes and gears, and each child got to take a turn helping to move it into position. If the telescope itself wasn’t impressive enough, we all let out a collective gasp when Dean cranked the ceiling open and suddenly we were all looking at the sky. Truly astonishing considering it’s over 150 years old.

If you haven’t been, move this to the top of your list. We’ll be going back for an evening visit as soon as we can get it on the books…