...and now for something completely different...

No, I'm not going to be playing the organ with nothing on (ugh, what a horrible thought) or doing silly walks, or even dressing up and hitting people with a fish (they were the only Monty Python references I could come up with in a short space of time)! However, this blog post is not really part of my usual topics (gardening, sewing, reading, baking, felt making, jewellery making etc.)  A weekend or so ago, Chris and I did something completely different and headed out to the Lincoln Observatory (seen in the photo above) as the Lincoln Astronomical Society (the photo is from their website) were hosting a Stargazing Live event and the observatory was open.  It was a little cloudy, but we managed to see some 'wonderful things' (Howard Carter's comment on peering into Tutankhamun's tomb for the first time).

 Above is a close-ish view of Jupiter.  Now, we didn't see it quite that well, but we did see the stripes (storms, I am reliably informed) and it was amazing.  To the naked eye, it just looked like a shining star...

 We also saw Orion's Nebula, which can be seen as a clump of stars in the sword formation on Orion's belt.  Using the telescope, you could see it was much more than that.

Apparently, this is what it looks like if you could get that close!  These pictures are all courtesy of Wikipedia and were taken by various probes.  It did make me feel very small and unimportant in the great scheme of things and gave me a greater respect for all the planets and stars which are out there and which we just take for granted.  So, a very interesting and different way to spend an hour on a Saturday evening.