Friday, August 17, 2012

Stargazing Instead of Knitting

400px-MakhteshRamon_MoonscapeLast night wasn’t spent knitting like most of my evenings. Instead, I took off a bit after 1pm with a few others from Tsfat for the desert in the south of the country. We did make two stops along the way and arrived at the Ramon crater approximately 5 hours later. We took a mattress and chose our spots in for sleeping and then we had a light picnic dinner before our stargazing event began.
mars-saturn-spica-august2012I was one of about 40 lying under the skies in a crater near Mitzpe Rimon watching the Perseid meteor shower and checking out several constellations: the dippers, Sagittarius, the Milky Way and we were also shown the Andromeda Galaxy. Saturn, Mars and Spica formed a triangle with Saturn at the top, Mars was the left (east) point of the triangle and Spica (Virgo’s brightest star) was directly underneath Saturn.  I got to see Saturn through a telescope and once my eyes adjusted looking through the telescope, I no longer saw an oval, I actually saw Saturn with its ring around it. It was an amazing sight.    Andromeda-galaxy
For the first time I saw a yellow star and a red star, Antares (meaning "Rival of Mars") is the bright red star in the heart of the Scorpion. Spica is a blue star. The brightest stars of the dippers are blue-white. It was so peaceful and enjoyable there stargazing.
In the crater, there is a campground, where we stayed. I slept, with many others, in the Bedouin-style tent there. It was a bit hard to fall asleep since there were two heavy snorers. Finally, I did fall asleep. I got up about 5:30am and saw the sunrise, then went back to sleep for about an hour before getting up for the day.
Beerot_Campground
Now to get ready for a scorching weekend!

1 comment:

  1. YOU HAVE BEEN A BUSY LITTLE BEAVER! GLAD TO SEE YOU ARE OUT AND ABOUT, UNLIKE SOME OTHER OF MY OLD TZFAT FRIENDS WHO SEEM TO BE VERY BORED WITH THEIR LIVES AND NEED SOME RECREATION!

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