Man, you won’t believe what I did today! So, the other day I was reading this old book about stars and stuff, and it mentioned this lady, Williamina Fleming. Turns out, she was just a regular Scottish maid working for this big-shot astronomer dude back in the 1880s.
This astronomer guy, the head honcho at the Harvard Observatory, was always griping about his team, saying, “My Scottish maid could do better!” Guess what? He actually went ahead and hired her! And get this, she ended up discovering a whole bunch of stars and even that cool-looking Horsehead Nebula thingy. I mean, who needs fancy degrees, right?
So, I got all inspired and thought, “Hey, I wanna try that!” I grabbed my trusty telescope, the one I got from a garage sale last summer. Now, this thing isn’t exactly top-of-the-line, it has a few dings and the lens is kinda smudged, but it works.
First, I tried to look for that Horsehead Nebula she found. Yeah, that was a fail. All I saw were some blurry lights. The book mentioned something about a “prism” and “spectral image” which sounded kinda fancy, and my telescope definitely didn’t come with those.
But I didn’t give up! I remembered Fleming was all about looking at stars, so I pointed my telescope at the brightest one I could find. It was a clear night, thankfully. I just started looking, and looking, and looking.
Here’s what I did:
- First, I spent hours just staring at that one star. I even made some coffee to keep myself awake.
- Then, I started sketching what I saw. My drawings look like a five-year-old did them, but whatever.
- I noticed the star kinda twinkled different colors sometimes. Mostly white, but sometimes I saw hints of blue and red.
- I kept notes of everything, just like Fleming did. I wrote down the time, the date, and even what the weather was like.
I don’t think I discovered any new stars or anything, but it was still pretty darn cool. I felt like a real astronomer for a night! It just goes to show you, you don’t need to be some genius with fancy equipment to explore the universe. You just need a little curiosity, a beat-up telescope, and maybe a pot of coffee.
Oh and one thing I figured, she was pregnant! That’s really impressive!
I might try again tomorrow night. Who knows, maybe I’ll find my own Horsehead Nebula… or at least a cool-looking cloud.
