Kat

I love looking for fun and cool experiences to try out around the Bay Area. San Francisco and San Jose always have lots of things going on, but I live in between those two cities, where there’s less things to do because most people go to sleep early (including me, ha!).

I heard about a place where you can see the stars on Friday nights at the Observatory at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. It’s about 20 mins away from Downtown Mountain View, not too far.

My boyfriend and I were excited to go check it out, and wanted to bring our friends from out of town (the ones we brought to Napa in this vlog). The website says Friday nights from 9-11pm, and we rushed to finish dinner and get over there in time. But when we arrived, the parking lot was empty. Wah wah. As a cop car drove by, we asked him about it. He said they probably don’t have it because it’s Memorial Day weekend. So we went home instead, without seeing any stars. 🙁

A couple weeks later, my boyfriend and I decided to try again! We went back and this time, there were other cars there! Signs of civilization are always great.

If you haven’t been to Foothill College, you need to pay to park, even if it’s in the middle of the night. Otherwise you could get a ticket. And we’re not THAT wild to live life on the edge. We found the parking pay station to pay $3 for a spot, and the machine ate our money!! Twice!! And then we realized that the printer was just stuck, so my boyfriend stuck his hand in the machine and pulled out 3 tickets… apparently someone else got jipped too. -_- Anyhow, we managed to find other people to give those extra tickets to.

Then we approached the observatory. And there’s this ominous staircase that looks a bit sketchy, not going to lie. We stared at each other. I wanted HIM to walk in first, and he wanted ME to walk in first. LoL. So I finally grabbed his hand and dragged him in, up the narrow and winding staircase.

At the top, it was very dark, except for a few red lights. There was maybe about 10 people already there, sitting or standing around a big a** telescope. Never seen one so big in my life. One one side, someone (who presumably knew what was going on) was sitting in front of a computer that has some stars on it.

Apparently you line up and wait for your turn to look through the telescope. There’s also a stepstool for the vertically challenged folks (like myself) who need an extra boost to reach the eye piece.

When I looked into the telescope, I saw a big white circle and small white dots around it. I thought it was the moon and 4 stars around it. The guy was explaining later that it was Jupiter and its moons. Whoops. Other people said they could see the rings on Jupiter, and even when I took a second look, all I could see was a white circle for Jupiter…

Once everyone had a turn to look at Jupiter, then this was the most exciting part. The guy told everyone to stand back and remove the stepstool, he hit a couple buttons on the computer, and then the telescope started moving on its own!! It switched to some other position, and then the entire ceiling overhead started moving as well. I was like WHOAA. I don’t have a better word to describe the ceiling thing, but it’s some type of dome enclosure on the building and there’s a gap where it’s open to the night sky. The open gap was just adjusting based on where the telescope was now pointing at. So anyways, the telescope switching positions was the most exciting part.

There’s an interesting echo in there as well because of the shape of the room, so you can hear what’s going on in the other side of the room. For half the time, my boyfriend kept nudging me to ask the guy, “Can we see Earth? C’mon ask it!!” -_- LoL

It does get a little chilly up there. And while you’re waiting in line, you can entertain yourself by looking at the other stars with your naked eye, which is pretty cool.

Also when we were standing in line for the telescope, and standing near the outlet for the telescope, my boyfriend said, “I wonder what will happen if we unplug this thing.” LOL I think you can tell what type of personality he has. Anyhow, it was amusing to experience this with him.

We also saw another view – I think it was a glob of stars in Hercules. I frankly couldn’t see much. I think it’s because of my bad vision. But it looked like a cloudy gray thing in the middle. Apparently you can see it clearer when you don’t look directly at the center where the stars are. My peripheral vision is not great either lol.

There was a whole bunch of people there and it got more crowded as the night went on, but people trickle in and out casually. Some kids were there because of their science class I think. They have to see 3 different things and take notes. Then the guy says the kids usually bolt after that. Some people brought their families with young kids. I imagine it would be cool to experience this live if I was reading books on astronomy as a kid.

Anyhow, it wasn’t quite what we had expected. My boyfriend thought it would have been more romantic, haha! But it was still fun to try! And when things are dark, it ups the excitement level.

This is life in the suburbs, people.

Here’s the link if you want to check it out: Foothill College Observatory Admission is free. Parking is $3.