Priceless

What is it the commercials say, "Priceless?" Well that's what about 10-15 minutes outside this evening were, "Priceless!" Michael and I were outside with binoculars looking for the International Space Station, which was scheduled to be overhead just before 8:00.

Waiting, we first focused our binocks on Venus, rising in the Eastern sky. Then we took in a bit of the half moon. While searching for the ISS, suddenly a "shooting star" came flying across a neighbor's roof! And that was particularly cool because on the way home from basketball practice the other night, Bopper saw a shooting star that I missed. He was giddy over it all night and then tonight....

But we didn't have time to think much about tonight's because following a high-soaring plane we originally thought might be the ISS, the real ISS showed. We actually spent more time looking without the binocks, just watching its very steady pace across the sky, from about ten o'clock to six o'clock (NNW to almost due S). While watching it, I asked Bopp if he'd like to be on it, like the astro/cosmonauts and scientists have been. He just thought about it.

Amid our thoughts and conversation, I had a more solemn moment. For whatever reason, I recalled nighttime labs in Prof. Cogan's Astronomy course at AC, watching the skies from Memorial Hill and Hitchcock Field with Bill Bradley. It capped a moving and memorable 20-minute episode this evening. Nope, I couldn't put a price on it....