Star Party

One of my friends here in Texas, Tim, hosted a Star Party at the observatory at University of North Texas in Denton (www.astronomy.unt.edu/ruac.html). I've never had the opportunity to look through huge telescopes, so I was so happy to be in town and to be invited. And, thanks to my friend Mike, who took all these photos with his handy phone.

Taking a sneak peak:

Hugeness:

Smaller telescopes but still powerful:


So, we saw a whirlpool galaxy, a cigar galaxy, M15 star cluster, something called M83, a swan constellation with two different colored eyes, Saturn and its rings, Mercury, Venus and Mars...oh, and a few shooting stars, too!