Where Do You Celestron

Observing the Sun from the "Rooftop Observatory"

Last year, the Celestron Telescope company put out a call for users of their products to share their stories of how they use them. As you may know, I like to bring my telescope to school to share my interest in astronomy with my students. Star gazing is an activity that I find enjoyable, inspiring and informative. I find that it can really open peoples' minds to amazing possibilities. That in mind, I decided to share a story with hopes that it might encourage other amateur astronomers to share the skies with students in their area. Sharing this story resulted in my winning a trip of a lifetime to see the Aurora Borealis in Alaska! I will be blogging this adventure to share my experiences with you all. So follow the blog, post comments, ask questions and keep looking up!

Here is the original story:

I Celestron On The Roof With My Students

I have a vintage orange tube C8 that I occasionally bring in to my school in the Bronx so that my students can get a chance to see the sun or moon through the telescope. Last week, 150 of my 3rd – 5th grade math & science students were able to gaze at the sun and see the active sunspots scattered across the sun from the rooftop of our school building. After I briefly described what they would be looking at, each child got to step up to the C8 and take a look. Reactions ranged from exclamations of disbelief both shouted and barely whispered were heard again and again. “Super, fantastic, amazing, and awesome are all words that can describe what I saw while looking at the sunspots!” wrote one of my students in her journal today. But perhaps the most wonderful reactions were the mouth open, silent, lingering gazes through the telescope and then quietly walking away with a huge grin. My students have run up to me everyday since we looked at the sun to tell me what the experience meant to them. They can’t wait for the next time I bring the telescope in so that they can look at the moon.