Initiate Launch Sequence...

It's official. I just bought my first-ever telescope.

Ok so it's not my FIRST ever... When I was wee, I had this little gray plastic one that I never could figure out how to use to observe the heavens, but it made for many an interesting evening watching neighbors' daily goings-on.

I've always had an interest in what lies beyond our planet, and an undeniable geekiness that must manifest somehow. It wasn't until this Summer that I realized I could actually do something with that interest. And use my geekiness for good. I had the serendipitous experience of being in the middle of nowhere, far away from big city lights, when our planet was bombarded with thousands of meteorites - a meteor shower caused by the passing by of a comet. The views of the night sky were breathtaking. I'd never had the opportunity to view it with such clarity and contrast. One striking feature divides the dome right down the middle like a giant seam - the Milky Way. Two bright, gnarly bands of gunk sandwich a dark, even gnarlier band of gunk. We've all heard of the Milky Way but it wasn't until I could really let its beauty soak in that it occurred to me to actually figure out what it is. If you don't know, allow me to enlighten you...

Simply put, it's our galaxy. The brightest point of which is the galactic core - the center of our galaxy. Our galaxy is thought to be whirlpool shaped. Giant stellar arms swirling around a center point. From our perspective, it's hard to map such an expansive structure, but astronomers generally agree that it consists of four main arms (from outermost in) The Sagittarius arm, the Perseus arm, the Scutum-Crux arm and the Norma arm. Our solar system lies within a spur of the Sagittarius arm known as the Orion spur. The reason the band is split down the middle by the darker band is that in between the arms lies giant collections of dust - particles of god-knows-what (I'm sure someone knows, I just don't want to look it up right now) obscuring our view. The Sun's gravity causes objects to orbit it far beyond the reach of the outermost planet. Still, we occupy a infinitely small space when you consider our galaxy alone is said to be 100,000 light years across. There are billions of stars in billions of galaxies across the universe. That's pretty hard to fathom. Fathoming makes my brain hurt.

The purchase of my telescope is a step in the direction of discovering for myself what is out there and seeing it first-hand instead of looking through endless pictures that - let's face it - all look the same. Though since I'm on a budget and still very much a novice, I didn't splurge on a high-powered telescope. (They totally have an $80,000 one.) The one I bought will allow me to see the moon, the planets, the Sun, and of course bright chunks of the Milky Way. Also, it's red. VROOM! So until I can afford to splurge on the upgrades and some flames decals on the side, I'll stay in our galactic neighborhood and observe what I can about the diverse cast of characters that make up our solar system.