With the advent of television in many parts of the world, the joy of creating, exploring or adventure has diminished. Entertainment occupies a lot of free time than many. The excitement of seeking new knowledge and exploring beyond known limits has led men to risk their wealth and even their lives.
Do you want to explore the craters and mountains of the moon or learn more about the planets in our solar system? How about we take a closer look at the Milky Way, to which our sun belongs, or the massive Andromeda Galaxy, which is 1,500,000 light-years away?
These are just some of the interesting things that have come up for thousands of people and families who have taken the time to explore the sky with binoculars or a small telescope. In this way, they could see tens of thousands of stars more than the 2,000 stars normally seen with the naked eye on a clear day. And much more in detail! What at first glance looks like a single star becomes two or more. Details about the lunar craters, Saturn's rings and countless star clusters become visible.
Take a telescope
Basic binoculars say a lot, but if you want to explore further, you need a small telescope. There are two types that are often available from commercial manufacturers: lens refractors with a diameter of 5 to 13 centimeters and mirror reflectors with a diameter of 10 to 30 centimeters. For the same diameter, reflectors weigh less, are shorter, easier to transport and store, and generally cost less than refractors.
The purpose of a telescope is to collect and magnify as much light as possible. A unit of 5 cm enters the eye about 60 times more light than the eye normally receives. A 3-inch device captures about 140 times more light. A larger telescope provides a brighter image with more detail, but costs more. Whether you buy a new or used one, it is wise to test it first, if possible.
On the other hand, you can create your own telescope and stay at home. This can be done cheaply and without wasting much time. If you want to build a telescope, you have to buy suitable lenses, but you can improvise the rest. The telescope is also available as a kit for significant savings. A good astronomy book for hobbyists can help you build and test a telescope.
Watch the sun
Can you explore the sun with a telescope? yes! BUT BE CAREFUL! Under no circumstances should you look directly at the sun through a telescope or binoculars. You can go blind permanently! However, it is possible to project the telescopic image on a screen and reduce any other light that hits it. This allows you to explore the surface of the sun. If you do, you will soon make an interesting discovery. The surface of the sun is not bright enough! It also has dark spots.
These are the "sunspots". Some are much larger than the earth. They consist of gases that are cooler than the rest of the sun's surface, although sunspots can reach 4000 degrees Celsius (about 7000 degrees Fahrenheit). They can appear, disappear and change shape and always change position when the sun rotates around its axis once in less than a month. Some people find it interesting to look at the development of sunspots.
Explore the moon
You will find it interesting to watch our nearest neighbor, the moon. A good opportunity to do this is in the first room and until the full moon. At that time, the long shadows mark the landscape more clearly. A look through the telescope shows high, steep mountains on the lunar surface. There are also rolling plains (once considered seas), giant craters, bumpy cliffs and all kinds of other places. But not a drop of water!
Man also discovered that the lower part of the moon contains the same elements as the earth, but in different proportions. And contrary to some popular misconceptions, the moon has one of the darkest surfaces of any body in the solar system; it reflects only 7% of the light that falls on it. However, it is enough to give the inhabitants of the earth a soft and pleasant light at night.
On the planet
Even though the planets are much more distant, there is still a lot of interest to explore. Often referred to as the morning or evening “star”, Venus is a good place to start. For the most part, you can see it in the late morning or early evening. This will show that Venus goes through phases like our moon.
Jupiter is generally the second brightest. It is the largest planet in our solar system and its diameter is approximately 140,000 kilometers. This planet has 13 known moons, four of which can be found with a small telescope. However, you can play “hide and seek” by changing their position or causing one or two to disappear for a while as these moons move in their orbits around Jupiter. You can also see Jupiter's belt or stripes, as well as its mysterious red spot.
Then there is Saturn, an exciting masterpiece of God's creation with its magnificent ring system. This magnificent set of three rings of different luminosity is believed to be made up of millions of tiny particles, each of which acts like a satellite of the planet. You are a real spectacle!
The bright red planet Mars with its polar caps is also exciting. However, with a small telescope, you can only examine it in detail every two years as you approach Earth. If you haven't seen March 1977, you'll have to wait until 1979.
There is so much more to see!
After exploring our solar system, a person can go further into deep space. The stars! How beautiful they are, hung like shining jewels in the darkness of the night! In some cases, you will find that what appears to be a single star is actually two or more side by side.
Examples are Alpha Crucis, the brightest star in Southern Cross, and Beta Cygni of Cygnus Swan. The latter consists of a yellow star with a small blue star. Cloudy patches in the sky show a large number of almost compact stars. And how exciting it is to discover the wonderful colors of these heavenly bodies, from bright red to gold, green and blue.
It is also fascinating to believe that most of the stars we see are thousands of light years away. This means that people do not see them as they are now, but as they were when the light left them long ago.
Take another look at the Andromeda Galaxy. It is the most distant object that can be seen with the naked eye. That's nearly nine million (9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) miles (approximately 14,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km) from us. Tonight, when we look at the faint glow of Andromeda, the light entering our eyes concludes a journey that began a million and a half years ago. How far can you see on a clear night! It's a fantastic show, almost like thinking about eternity.
The opportunity to explore is limitless. It's always exciting to see a giant fireball light up the sky or a "star" (meteor) light up a trail of fire in the dark. It is estimated that 90 million meteorite traces can be seen around the world in a 24-hour period, although many are just snapshots. They are most often seen in the early morning hours, as this is when the part of the earth you live in turns forward as you travel around the sun and later encounter meteors. Spectacular meteor showers occur at certain times of the year when the earth flows through a flood of meteors, which in turn revolve around the sun.
Exploring the sky at home can be a great joy for young and old.