we went out to our dark spot (a great clearing in the middle of a national forest)
the conditions were absolutely perfect - really no moon, perfectly clear skies, hot tbh but it was hotter inside my house at the time so idgaf, and most importantly the Perseid meteor shower. truly astronomical luck that the stars aligned (heh) to match moon, weather, event, and work+school schedule to make the perfect night.
and perfect it was! we stayed under those stars for hours, as i learned how to identify certain constellations, finding certain stars in my binoculars and showing my spouse. we saw about 30 or so meteors fall, some really bright and taking up a formidable portion of the sky, some just little flicks of light. we saw Saturn, and later Jupiter (though we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it was...). Jupiter was especially gorgeous, so bright and big that you can really perceive its object-ness and see that it's rly a sphere and not just a point in the sky. i showed my spouse how to find the north star, and Ophiuchus (constellation they were born under) as well as Sagittarius and Cassiopeia.
we also met many friends (coyotes howling in the distance, and a bat which came really close to us). saw 5 deer on the drive home, and had almost a dozen moths in the car (they were kinda everywhere, haha)
not many pics tonight, as i had to save battery and didn't wanna ruin my dark vision. enjoy this 1, though.
I got Andromeda!