Rocky Mountain Stargazing

👐 SPi53 Smart Telescope Unboxing 📦

Spectrum Optics recently sent me their SPi53 Smart Telescope to show you all what it's capable of! I am really excited to share this one with you and enhance our visual telescopes with the addition of some smart telescopes!

For the longest time I have a been a visual telescope purist, and I still am to a certain degree. There is something special about seeing the real light from a space object with your own eye, but recently I have found that pairing visual telescopes and smart telescopes together amplifies the visual experience of stargazing! Being able to get a more detailed view from a smart telescope after seeing a galaxy or a nebula is such a cool experience, and helps tie together what is seen through the visual scopes.

If you want to see what this telescope can do, book a stargazing tour with us or join us at one of the free star parties we host/attend.

🤫 The Big Dipper Has a Secret

⭐ The 2nd star from the top of the handle of the Big Dipper is not just one star. Even with the naked eye in dark skies, you can just barely see a faint star right next to this bright one. These two stars are named Mizar and Alcor.

🔭 When you zoom in further with a telescope you'll actually see that the bright star splits into two more stars that appear very close together. These 3 stars form a long skinny triangle.

With special kinds of telescopes we can actually see that each one of those 3 bright stars are actually two more stars!

The craziest part is that the two that look like they are almost touching (that are actually 4 stars total) are all gravitationally bound together. This means you could potentially have 4 sunsets and 4 sunrises if you lived there.

Now it may be a pretty place for a planet, but it is not a good place for life. In these multi-star systems, there is a high probability of planets being ejected from their solar systems.

🌎 So let's just admire this star system from the safety and comfort of earth.

If you want to learn more interesting facts about space and see them with your own eyes through our telescopes, book a private stargazing tour with Rocky Mountain Stargazing or come to one of our summer-time, free star parties at Jordanelle State Park.