First Astronomy Class

Yesterday was the first Astronomy class meeting. I'd say the class went well, We met from 10 - noon, has lunch at 1:00, then again from 2 - 4 PM. I and a number of the students went for swims in the warm Indian Ocean in the afternoon. Dinner was outside in the large outdoor pavilion. Beautiful and amazing.

The water is very warm and high tide today was in the afternoon, so we could go out just 30 feet and float and swim. There are almost no waves here. The Indian Ocean is calmer, I think, and the island of Zanzibar is about 30 miles directly offshore. Yesterday small gentle one foot waves lapped at the shore.

Around 10 PM, I looked out and saw the sky had cleared a bit. It wasn't hard to wrangle up a group of a dozen students to go out and see the main constellations. It wasn't a deep dark sky, but we could easily see the handle of the Big Dipper, five Zodiac constellations, the stars Alpha and Beta Centauri and the Southern Cross. These last ones we can never see from Pittsburgh because they are too far south.

Kim and I are headed out to breakfast soon. The class ask to meet once a day from 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM, so they could be free in the afternoon, so we are going to try it today.