Early birds? Take a look up at the morning sky!
If you have sleepyhead kids you’re dragging out of bed for school or children who never wake up up before dawn, this is not for you. So, take your well-rested eyes, and save this for those of us who’ve never had to utter the words “rise and shine” to our children.
I know many of my friends think I am crazy, but I’ve just embraced the early morning wake-ups and accepted them as a part of our lives. So, this morning, when Gracie woke up extra early even for her – and Natalie was not too long after her, and the dog, Bella, needed to go out, and I stepped out into the chilly air I found such a nice surprise! Almost by accident, I looked up and Gracie popped her head out, too. She looked up and said “Woah! I feel like there should be a shooting star!” And not more than a minute later, just on cue: WOOSH! A star sailed across the sky! Well, that was enough for the three of us to bundle up, camp out on the patio, and start studying the sky.
Now, I am no astronomer, but it because obvious pretty quickly that this was a special sky! In a quick search on my ipad I was able to find this map of the October before dawn sky, from earthsky.org. Amazingly, we identified Orion’s Belt immediately, and then could deduct from there which “star” was Jupiter. It was unbelievable to the girls that they were looking at a planet! For more well-trained eyes, it seems there are opportunities to see comets and other planets like Venus and Saturn as well. I’m sure my beginner’s look pales in comparison to what an expert could identify for my kids.
The sky didn’t start to lighten until close to 7 AM, so even if you’re not up at 5:00 like us, you can still catch a glimpse of this amazing sky!