It'd been way too long since I ran into my buds, the Gangsta cows. This past weekend I shared many cow stories with visitors. Hey, it's the American West. Everybody has cow stories.
The paragliders came back in full force, too. Look at all of them.
And, I bumped into a pair of antelope on my way up the mountain last Friday. It's a very short video.
A beautiful sunset.
A waning moon.
Jupiter is rising. Here's a photo from week before last of Jupiter rising with the waning moon.
Here's a photo of Jupiter and its four Galilean moons: Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa. It's not a great photo. Hopefully as Jupiter gets higher in the sky earlier in the night, I'll get better photos of it.
Here's a video of a twinkly star. When they're low on the horizon, they change colors and brightness, like a holiday light. I enjoy watching them through the telescope. It's the atmosphere which makes them do that, the same effect which causes the sun to break into brilliant color when it sets. A twinkly start on a much larger scale. It's very short.
I met some really awesome people over the past few weeks. I consider myself fortunate that the observatory attracts so many interesting people. Quite a few young people came with avid interests in astronomy. More than one young mind told me they were going to grow up to be an astronomer. I love hearing kids with an interest in science and I do my best to get them even more interested.
Sometimes I feel the season is starting to get long, but it never fails that some fabulous people drop by to re-energize me and remind me why I have the most awesome job on the planet.
Look at what these awesome visitors did. They added yeti art to the yeti houses.
