Star Light, Star Bright

It’s still my party! My birthday celebrations continued at night when we joined up with Lainie and her group and went to a family run observatory.

We had to chance to look through a big telescope and were able to see Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon up close. We also saw a big star cluster filled with thousands of stars.

Looking through the telescope

Zoe looking at the night sky

After looking at the night sky, we went into the planetarium. This is a room with a domed ceiling where images of the night sky are projected. We learned more about the Southern hemisphere like the Southern Cross and other stars the Incas would have seen.

It was also really interesting to learn about the Incas and how they used the stars. They would use stars as navigation and to determine when to harvest or plant their different crops. The Incas also built many solar observatories to be able to see the sky clearly.

An ancient Incan observatory

The oldest observatory in America

One of the most important groups of stars for the Incas was the Milky Way. They believed it was a river in heaven and brought rain to Earth. They also had their own constellations with things from their everyday lives. But the Incas also made “constellations” with the areas without stars.  For example, in the Milky Way, there is a scene with a Black Llama and a baby llama drinking water while a fox waits behind them and a shepherd boy comes running to scare it away. There are also other figures in this constellation such as a toad, a partridge, and a snake.

The Incas believed each star or constellation protected a person or animal.  Sometimes sacrifices would be made because they were considered sacred.  The constellations were always from everyday life, so certain constellations were more important depending on how useful the animal was.  For example, the llama was one of the most important because it was used for wool, food, carrying loads, and sacrifices.  All of the stars were also able to “live” together and interact, while our constellations are very different from each other.

The appearance of some constellations also corresponds with natural life cycles on Earth.  For example, snakes are more active in the months when the snake constellation is in the sky and baby foxes are born when the fox constellation comes into view.

This reminded me of our experience in Hawaii with the man from NASA. These two experiences were really cool and fun. Maybe astronomy is in the cards for me in the future!

Our time at the observatory was a great end to my birthday. But wait! There’s more! After we left the observatory, we went into a small cafe and ordered a giant fruit salad with ice cream and whipped cream. Yum yum!