Awesome Date Night!

So, I have to admit, I was pretty bored tonight. I thought I'd just read before bed and fall asleep at 11pm or so. Well, I was completely mistaken! Jason and I took the kids to Arctic Circle at 8pm for some chocolate dipped cones and we were pretty sure the evening was going to be boring. Jason was going to get in a lot of video game time and I thought I'd just read, as previously stated. BUT, after the kids were bathed and in bed, Jason and I went outside and sat on our front bench and started to notice the stars! We live in such a peaceful and quiet area that you can hear the sprinklers all around in the neighboring fields and we can always see stars, but we don't usually stop to really notice. So, we got to talking and I said that I had always wanted to be able to at least point out a few constellations, but never have had the opportunity or charts to find them. Well, thanks to the wonderful internet, I jumped up and went and googled "star chart" and this amazing website came up! http://www.skymaps.com/ It is the coolest website and they publish a star chart for every month, in each hemisphere! So, we clicked on the download and printed it off, but I was still a little skeptical. I thought it would be too hard to really find anything besides the big dipper, which I had already found. So, I drug a blanket out onto our front lawn and Jason and I had flashlights and we went from chart to sky to chart to sky and found so many things! I have always heard of Cassiopea and the Summer Triangle, but I always thought you had to be smart--or know someone who is--to find out about them and find them in the sky! So, yeah, we found Cassiopea and the Summer Triangle and Jupiter and the Teapot and Percious and lots of them! If we had had some good binoculars or a telescope, we could have seen the Andromeda Galaxy or Herschel's Garnet Star and tons of others! Seriously, this guide is free and it makes it so fun and easy! I never thought that I could see so many cool things in the sky! I thought I'd need a lot of special equipment, I am seriously so impressed! I think this star gazing thing will become a tradition! It was the most fun date I have been on in a while, I think because it was different, I've always wanted to do it, it was cheap, and really made me think about life outside of my little bubble! Fun! The first picture below is of the Andromeda Galaxy. I guess its is the most distant object visible to the naked eye (obviously you can't see it like this, but isn't it gorgeous!) The red one is the Lagoon Nebula. Isn't it amazing? I even found it on my map! I would really love to be able to see these for real. Now that I've found them on the map and seen them as specs in the sky, I really feel like I believe that they are up there, now. It makes it more real! These pictures are from sky-map.org. It gives you a full interactive map and is just so much info, its overwhelming! I hope you guys try this!