Family Stargazing for Beginners
"Did you get the text about the ISS flying over tonight?"
That's how a friend introduced us to a whole new way to stargaze with our kids.
We'd been looking at the stars with our little guys for years, but we'd never taken the time to sign up for Spot the Station (a NASA website where you can enter your zip code and they'll send you a text on the days when the International Space Station is going to be visible for you with the time and direction) or download the SkyView app to identify constellations, planets, and the ISS when it passes over too.
So one night last summer, we all met up at the time her text said the ISS would fly over, and guess what - it did! It was so big and bright, and we were right there watching it.
The kids were amazed, and we had a new fun thing to do together.
I signed up for the alerts that night, and I've been getting them for a year now - telling the kids each time I get a text what time the ISS will be passing over. Sometimes we go see it and sometimes we don't (because sometimes it's flying over at 3am), but we don't just stargaze on the nights when the ISS alerts come. We like to stargaze whenever the mood strikes us.
We've seen the Milky Way on top of a mountain in Maine, spotted meteors raining down in three different states, said "hello" to Venus and Mars in the early morning, and we've even ventured out to quite a few National Park ranger events at night under the stars to learn about what it is we're seeing up there. But all of that started because our kids were just as amazed as we were the first time we saw those bright shiny things in the sky on a clear, dark night.
A warm night, a clear sky, and an area with low light pollution are all you need for a few hours of family time together looking at the stars.
Seriously - you don’t need to be an astronomy expert, and you don't have to give a lecture. As multiple park rangers have told us, you can make up a story about any star formation you want and use it to impress your family. Or, you can simply spread out a blanket, lie on your back with your kiddos, and look up on a clear night. They’ll probably come up with their own stories.
We even met a guy this summer who had found E.T. in the stars, and he brought his high-powered telescope to show it to us.
One of our favorite ways to enjoy stargazing with our kids is to spend the first few minutes staring up in wonder and chatting about what we think this or that star might be and searching for satellites and space junk. Then we pull out our smartphones with the SkyView app and check to see if we were right. (Check out this article for more on how to spot satellites in the night sky - it's super fun!)
One of my favorite stargazing moments happened last winter when we were in Florida. We were sitting outside on a dark night with the kids looking for a potential meteor shower when we saw a big white light traveling fast across the sky. We just knew it had to be the ISS, so we grabbed our phone and put on SkyView, and sure enough - it was! We had spotted it even without the text telling us where to look, so for the next several nights, we sat out there as a family long after bedtime looking up at the sky talking and laughing and just being together.
I hope when they're older they'll remember those stargazing nights and feel that excitement and connection with us again - I think they will.
So this weekend, if the weather is clear in your part of the world, pull out the picnic blankets and make a date with your family to watch the stars. Warm nights are now coming to our part of the country, so we started looking for stars just last night and spotted three satellites right off the bat!
And if you need more cool apps for stargazing, check out this article I found. We hope to be trying a few of these ourselves this summer.
By the way, in case you're looking for more ways to learn together with your kids this summer while they're out of school, we shared our story about how we keep the learning going in our house all summer with some sneaky learning (and some not-so-sneaky stuff too). And about how we stopped summer slide from happening - it's something called Stay Sharp This Summer.
Do you have any fun tips for stargazing with your family?
Come chat in the email group - I'd love to hear about them!