Go to the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory

Picture of snow, not space, but still very cool

Go to the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory
February 7, 2014

I love space.  It's so vast, mysterious and beautiful.

The Rothney Astrophysical Observatory is run through the local university and is located just south west of Calgary.  I'm not really sure when I found out about it, but I've wanted to check it out for a very long time.

They post about public nights on their website and I've kept a close eye on it for the past 9 months or so.  The summer seemed like a great time to go, but things kept coming up that would stop me.  We either had plans or the sky was overcast, etc...

Into the fall and winter the frequency of the public nights dropped by quite a bit and I started to get concerned about this one.

 At the beginning of January they posted about the next public night - February 1st - the night that Mark and I had tickets to the opera.  And that was going to be the last public night before my birthday. So that was unfortunate!

I contacted the observatory and inquired about having two people for a private tour.  They said that they only run private tours for organizations with a minimum of ten guests.

Stumped again.

Then, the lovely Courtney had a brilliant idea.  She has a business name, why not host an 'event' there with her company as the hosting organization?  This was perfect!  I booked the tour and ten of my friends jumped at the chance to learn more about space.

On the night of the tour it was cold and overcast.  That was disappointing, but the rest was amazing.

Our guide took us out to the small telescope right away.  The moon had peaked out for a few minutes and she didn't want to miss our opportunity.  Even though it was a small telescope, the power of it was incredible.  The moon looked so clear through the lens.

Afterwards we went inside for a presentation about the astronomer Keppler and what our galaxy looks like from outside of it, as well as other cool space info.  Our group had great questions and it was more like a led discussion.

Afterwards she took us outside to see the big telescopes.  They weren't in use, but just seeing the size and hearing about what they can do was really interesting.  We were all blown away by the first one, which a lot of the students use for study.  It was in a small dome shaped room, which looked pretty much exactly like what you'd expect an astrophysical observatory to look like. 

Then she took us over to the next building.  It had offices and other incredible space things in it.  We each got to hold a meteor that was billions (!) of years old.  It was heavier than expected and smelled like pennies. 

Then she led us down the hall into the next room.  Entering one at a time, each person exclaimed in excitement, leaving the people behind more and more in anticipation.

That room had a gigantic telescope.  We thought we had seen the large one in the first space, but this blew it out of the water (or sky, har har har)!  It was a large room and we were all quiet, looking up in awe. 

Around the room they had face cut out boards for photos, which was a lot of fun, but it was hard to not just stand below the telescope and stare.

We stayed in the room for a little while, but then it was time to go back to the main area.  The moon had poked out again, so we got a second look.

Afterwards we tried to warm up with coffee and hot chocolate, had a short visit and then it was time to go. 

Our guide gave us a deal on the rate.  She said it was because the sky was clouded over so we couldn't see much, but I think it was really because she enjoyed our group so much.  She's probably used to school groups filled with kids who are begrudgingly dragged along, but we were so excited about everything.  And we were silly.  I love that about my friends.

I can't wait to go back to the RAO this summer on a beautiful clear night.  You should go too.  It's cool.