Monday 8 February 2010

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Winter Series ~ Winter Stars

We finally had a clear enough night to see stars tonight, and so we decided to try to look for a few winter stars.

You can visit the Handbook of Nature Study blog to read about how to participate in this study. The Handbook of Nature Study book by Anna Botsford Comstock has a great chapter on the constellations. 


We also used the Glow In The Dark Constellations: A Field Guide for Young Astronomers by C.E. Thompson. We have had this book for as long as I can remember and finally used it to its full potential...not just taking it into a dark closet or unlit bathroom but looking up positions of certain constellations and then finding them outside!

The night sky is really dark around us. We live in a smaller town, far enough from the city to not get a lot of light pollution. We could see the starts perfectly tonight, a beautiful clear sky. I couldn't take any good photographs though...they all came out black like this:


But I did get one of the kids lying on their blankets, before I joined them. They were so excited to do this!


We were able to locate and see very clearly Orion and Orion's belt. This was a lot of fun since our husky puppy's name is Orion!

We also found the Big Dipper and Sirius.

We absolutely loved doing this night time nature study. We will be looking up at the moon on the next clear night.

4 comments:

  1. A+++ for this challenge. I love the photo of you all bundled up under the stars since that is one of our family's favorite nighttime activities. We usually reserve it for summertime though. One summer my son and I slept outside for a whole week under the stars, just the two of us. It is one of my favorite memories. There is just something about being outside under that big night sky that brings you closer together.

    Thank you so much for sharing your OH time with everyone. Don't forget to submit this to the Blog Carnival. http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_9182.html

    Barb-Harmony Art Mom

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  2. Looks like such fun!

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  3. Oh that had to be so much fun!! My oldest boy loves astronomy and doesn't let the cold weather stop him from going out to enjoy the night sky. He's never thought to take blankets out before. I'll have to suggest it for his next excursion.

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