Saturn, Lord of the rings

The planet Saturn can be seen beautifully now in the night sky. Saturn is one of the most fascinating planets because of its rings. Through our 10 inch telescope you can clearly see the rings sticking out on both sides of the planet. Some of the larger moons can be seen as well. Saturn is one of the gas planets and the second largest planet in our solar system, after Jupiter. The planet is about nine times farther from the Sun than Earth. With the naked eye it can be seen

Lunar eclipse

 On Wednesday 15 June there was a full lunar eclipse. As astronomy lovers we off course wanted to see that. We had only one couple as guests, Trevor Carnaby with his wife and baby of 9 months old. Trevor is the writer of the books “beat about the bush” with a lot of information about the animals here in Southern Africa. We have both his books (about mammals and about birds) and were happy to hear that he is busy with more books and that stars will have a place in one of them. They have bought a property here in Balule and since they still have to build their house, they came to us for one night. They are very nice people and it is nice to have such an expert here in the reserve.

Trevor’s wife was tired and wanted to go to bed early but he was keen

Breathtaking stars

As a child I already had a fascination for stars. I think I was about nine years old when my brother in law pointed out the Big Dipper to me for the first time, and from that moment I was hooked. Although I already owned a book about astronomy when I still lived in the Netherlands and had looked up to the breathtaking sky of the southern hemisphere during our travels, the real fascination came when I came to live here in South Africa. Especially in winter the sky here is so clear that you can see the Milky Way beautifully.

Corné also got interested and together we watched the beautiful stars that we knew so little about at that stage. We learned some basic knowledge about the Southern Cross