Tonight Katie and I went to the USU Obervatory. I had to go for an assignment in my astronomy class (no idea why I'm taking this blasted class...), and Katie came along for emotional support and to look through a telescope.
When we got to the engineering building we tried to go up in this giant freight elevator in this random corner, but the elevator wouldn't go anywhere, so we had to walk up all the stairs to the roof! Now it may only have been three or four flights of stairs, but after all those kick-sets I did in the pool this morning, that many stairs proved quite the climb. Plus, I was wearing wranglers, which didn't help much either...
Finally, we reached the roof. It was dark. It was annoying. There was a blob of students huddled beside this big, important-looking dome dealio, and they were all pointing up at the sky (at what, I have no clue), and talking amongst themselves, writing notes on pieces of paper--I was so lost. I found the "instructor" and asked for some direction. He started explaining things to me, like Asmythes and angular size and using your hand to measure by degrees, I still have no idea! All of a sudden, I hate ASTRONOMY!
I just wrote down whatever I thought might get me some kind of grade and called it good. Then I turned to Katie and said, "Katie, I have a terrible confession to make... I am turning into a careless slacker in my old age."
She just told me that I was too young to be in any sort of old age, and that was that, and we decided to go explore inside the dome. We walked in, then up some winding stairs lit with strips of creepy red lights like the ones you'd see in movie theaters on the ground. Well, it was just dark and nobody was up there, and I started thinking of aliens and bigfoot and scary things, so I had to go back down.
We found the instructor and asked him if we could look at Jupiter through the telescope. He led us back up the creepy winding stairs, but this time he turned on the light so we could actually see. I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie, they opened the dome and focused the 100-year-old telescope on Jupiter. Katie looked through it first and said it was way awesome. I was next and so excited.
It was hard for me to bend over and see through my right eye, so I tried looking through my left eye, but my left eye has an astigmatism so I can't see very clearly through it alone. I did see Jupiter though! It was just a spot of light in the lens. Boring. No flashy swirls of colorful storms, no great red spot, nothing but a light. I might as well look up right now at the lightbulb in the ceiling! It was quite the disappointment.
So we left the observatory, said goodbye to this nice boy named Chris that we met and sorta made friends with (he said he's going to look for me in class tomorrow so we can sit together... ooh.) And that was it. Just a little light. A little lame light. Boring. I can't wait to go to that wretched astronomy class tomorrow and talk with cute Chris about how lame Jupiter turned out to be.
When we got to the engineering building we tried to go up in this giant freight elevator in this random corner, but the elevator wouldn't go anywhere, so we had to walk up all the stairs to the roof! Now it may only have been three or four flights of stairs, but after all those kick-sets I did in the pool this morning, that many stairs proved quite the climb. Plus, I was wearing wranglers, which didn't help much either...
Finally, we reached the roof. It was dark. It was annoying. There was a blob of students huddled beside this big, important-looking dome dealio, and they were all pointing up at the sky (at what, I have no clue), and talking amongst themselves, writing notes on pieces of paper--I was so lost. I found the "instructor" and asked for some direction. He started explaining things to me, like Asmythes and angular size and using your hand to measure by degrees, I still have no idea! All of a sudden, I hate ASTRONOMY!
I just wrote down whatever I thought might get me some kind of grade and called it good. Then I turned to Katie and said, "Katie, I have a terrible confession to make... I am turning into a careless slacker in my old age."
She just told me that I was too young to be in any sort of old age, and that was that, and we decided to go explore inside the dome. We walked in, then up some winding stairs lit with strips of creepy red lights like the ones you'd see in movie theaters on the ground. Well, it was just dark and nobody was up there, and I started thinking of aliens and bigfoot and scary things, so I had to go back down.
We found the instructor and asked him if we could look at Jupiter through the telescope. He led us back up the creepy winding stairs, but this time he turned on the light so we could actually see. I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie, they opened the dome and focused the 100-year-old telescope on Jupiter. Katie looked through it first and said it was way awesome. I was next and so excited.
It was hard for me to bend over and see through my right eye, so I tried looking through my left eye, but my left eye has an astigmatism so I can't see very clearly through it alone. I did see Jupiter though! It was just a spot of light in the lens. Boring. No flashy swirls of colorful storms, no great red spot, nothing but a light. I might as well look up right now at the lightbulb in the ceiling! It was quite the disappointment.
So we left the observatory, said goodbye to this nice boy named Chris that we met and sorta made friends with (he said he's going to look for me in class tomorrow so we can sit together... ooh.) And that was it. Just a little light. A little lame light. Boring. I can't wait to go to that wretched astronomy class tomorrow and talk with cute Chris about how lame Jupiter turned out to be.
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