Moon Gazing

Our daughter has been working on a project on moon-watching this week: each night, go outside, look for the moon, and draw what you see in a journal. The first night was great, with the crescent moon peeking in and out from the high clouds. Tonight - not so good, as the lowlying cloud deck is blocking all the light from the sky, reflecting the red flourescent stuff from the city around us.

But it's cool to do with her. One of the things I remember fondly from sixth grade was the winter time unit on astronomy. The stars and constellations change over the course of a year, so when the autumn and winter night sky starts to look familiar, I remember way back to those classes. Cameron's not the old yet, and I'm not going to quiz her on the stars and planets, but it's neat to stare at the sky together as fathers and daughters and sons have done for centuries - it was all the reality TV they had.

What do we look for up there? What are we hoping to find together? Maybe it's the light of the moon, reflecting the sun into the darkness so we don't trip over ourselves.