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I've added the moon phase, for no other reason than I could. My husband, who is jubilant because he has won the NASCAR Daytona pool overheard them saying something about the moon. Well, I knew it wasn't a full moon, as I've nearly fallen in the ditch taking the dogs on p.m. "business" walks due to it being so dark. We're gardeners, too, so we are rather attentive to the moon (unless you worried that I was burying goat blood in sacred holes during specific phases). I also have an atomic clock which gives me the moon phases, so THAT told me that there was no full moon.

I have a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. I bought it for my son's b'day (and for me) some years ago as I had an interest in astronomy. For his birthday, we invited over several of his friends, made homemade pizzas from tortillas and such. I also bought from Edmunds Scientific a planetary guide. It was loads of fun. I've only had a few b-day parties for my kids--I've never considered it an imperative.

One of the super-coolest (does saying that make me sound so old) things we ever witnessed were the moons of Jupiter. It was during one Halloween and it was a beautifully clear night. The moons could be seen as pin dots, but they were visible. The other thing that is neat about that telescope is that it has a rotator calibrated to the earth's rotation. So the the super-duper-coolest thing is to focus on the moon and then watch it slowly move out of the field of view--watching the earth's rotation.