The first time I ever looked at another planet through a telescope I was in high school back in

2011. I signed up for the astronomy class, wanting to learn more about the universe and the story of
how we had learned of all these wonders. I never had any expectations about looking at a planet
through a telescope for the first time. .
I remember my interest in space and the universe sparked at early childhood. As a child with
questions, adults were good sources for answers. But learning about the universe there was questions I
had asked my parents because they were adults and they should have all the answers. But it bothered
me when they did not give me the answers I was looking for. For the first time I saw my parents as
mortals and not all knowing beings.
So naturally I wanted to learn about the universe, I never had any schooling in the subject, but I
was always drawn to articles, news stories and televisions about the universe. The questions spawned
and did not go away as I gained knowledge of the universe. I realized the questions were never going
away, the questions are a side effect of being human, we all of our unanswered questions. The
unanswered and unknown becomes a mental playground. When dealing with the unknown your guess
can be good as anyone else until proven otherwise.
The planets that could be seen by the naked eye were tracked studied and named by many
cultures since antiquity. The motion of the stars and planets helped ancient astronomers anticipate the
seasons and helped them plant crops at the best times. The universe has been and still today is used as a
resource to advance civilization.
Back in high school I had met with my teacher and class for an observation in the back of the
high school where the playing field was at the edges of the field were houses and trees. It was a cool
spring night, I arrived at twilight just after the sun had set. The sky was a milky with a color blend of
bright yellow, dark orange and light purple. The few clouds remaining were scattered luminous and
ready to disperse for the night. I parked my car on a curb by the field, I walked 50yds on the uneven
field, the grass was mostly green with patches yellowish brown grass.

I saw my group huddled together, 7 or 8 students dressed in hoodies and sweaters and my
teacher Mr Lund with his telescope and tripod. The telescope was a crimson red it stood on a metal
tripod, each leg planted into the ground it stood about 4ft tall. The telescope had a gps mount and motor
with a database of thousands of view able objects. The telescope was pointed to the sky at a 45 degree
angle and we waited for the dusk to pass. It got darker and darker by the minute, the moon was absent
so most of the light was ambient from the back of the school, the building lights in yellow and street
lights in white we were far enough from the lights that they would be no problem with our observing.
It was dark enough and time to start. Mr lund had a very bright green laser that he used to point
out constellations in the sky.. He called out the names of a star circled it with the laser and drifted the
light it across the darkened blue sky to the star related to the constellation. I was unable to see most of
the constellations, it was my first time looking up and trying to actually find them. Its difficult to
discern the stars of a constellation when you don't know what to look for.
After we finished the observable constellations we had one started looking at various stars. He
entered the name of a star and the telescoped moved on its own finding the star. I looked at different
stars of different colors and brightness. There were binary stars and star clusters. We had finished the
stars and there was one planet to the west above the Oquirrh mountains. It looked like a white dot
nothing special. Mr lund called it out as Jupiter. I knew what Jupiter was, it was the biggest planet in
our solar system. More than a thousand times bigger than the earth. With the telescope aimed at Jupiter
it was my turn to look. I lowered my head to the eye piece and saw the orange and rust colored bands
running across Jupiter. It took me buy surprise I never seen a planet before. There were also four bright
dots to the left and right of Jupiter, it was the Galilean moons, I was never expecting to see them. After
viewing Jupiter it left me with an intense feeling like an adrenaline rush .It was the same planet Galileo
had observed in a telescope that helped shaped our understanding of the universe hundreds of years. I
was thinking back in time through thousands of years about how many humans have pondered what
that white dot in dark blue sky was.