And what did you learn today?

Lately The Boy, my wonderful 14 year old son (yes I realize that statement should be an oxymoron) has been really interested in Astronomy.

I happen to know a little about some constellations but really nothing else. He has been reading about novas, supernovas, nebulae and dark holes. Every once in while he comes and tells me something he has read and I end up looking at him like he's speaking some foreign language.

So this evening, using this website , we went outside when it got dark and looked at the stars. He was trying to find Andromeda. Well I could find Cassiopeia and from there we tried to find Andromeda. But there was too much light and we weren't sure if we found it. Looking at our SkyMap and then looking up at the sky, we found Cepheus. I had no idea who or what Cepheus was. The Boy looked it up on Wikipedia and we learned that Cepheus was the King of AEthiopia, Cassiopeia was his queen and Andromeda was their daughter. How cool is that. This is how the constellations were positioned.

So we learned something new. How about you? What did you learn today?