On clear nights I would often take Eli outside to look at the stars when he was a toddler. I told him the names of a few stars, he asked me to tell him the names of all the stars. I found out quickly young eyes are better for looking at stars, he could see a lot more of them than me. This evening we got a chance to look at Jupiter and two of it’s moons using a telescope!
Right now it’s close enough you can see Jupiter’s moons with a good pair of binoculars.
Finding Jupiter was the easiest part. Early evening it was right where it should be.
The most difficult part was pointing the telescope at that star. We borrowed a telescope (thanks Sean!) and after lots of randomly fiddling with the various undocumented knobs I finally figured out which ones did X another X, Y, Z, Y again, another Y, a yawing Y, and some sort of arc, and got it pointed towards Jupiter!
The earth of course is rotating so I had to re-align it every minute or so. I think it would be a great idea for someone to make a telescope with built in gyroscopes so they will stay pointed in a particular direction.
I’m guessing the moons we saw were Europa and Callisto since Io and Ganymede would have been transiting Jupiter at the time we were looking.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the expanse proclaims his handiwork.
Psalm 19:1-6 ESV
You gave credit to the where is is due in your Psalm 19 reference. Good on ya!