Astronomy!

Ella has become really interested in Astronomy.
Not our fault.
I don't think she even knows we're Astronomers.
I was careful not to push Astronomy too hard. We'd regularly talk about the sun and the moon and explain day and night and all that, but we were careful not to dump a whole bunch of astro on her before she's ready.

Actually, the recent space interest is all a result of Ella's favorite TV shows, which features Mickey Mouse and friends who occasionally take their spaceship for a ride around the solar system to visit their Martian counterparts.

Anyway

Ella became interested in planets, stars, and telescopes.
Here are a couple of "space treasure maps" that she drew a couple of days ago: the first one has the moon, mars, a couple of stars, and a fence (or gate).
   
the second one has mars on the right, a mystery planet under it, the moon, and saturn(!)

We've been waiting for a clear night to pull out the telescope and take a look at the sky, and tonight was a great night for Ella's first Astronomical observation ever!

We started by trying to look at the crescent moon through our bedroom window, where it's nice and warm and we can figure out how to move the telescope and get it focused without having to fight the cold. 

When we got all excited and wanted to look at some more objects, like stars and planets, we moved to the back yard. 

looking at the moon

looking through the finder, the moon is "medium size"

outside, looking at Jupiter and its moons

finding the moon in the finder, behind the branches of a tree...

and looking at the moon. "it has craters!"