Free lessons from the trash

Today I am going to tell you a different... story. Here in Austria it is very common for people to leave things they don't need downstairs in the street in case someone wants them. There is everything, kitchen utensils, books, furniture... they leave a little piece of paper that says "free" on it.

The thing is that the other day I came home from the office and I saw next to the trash cans one of these "gifts" and I thought it was a photography tripod. But no, it was a telescope. Nothing too fancy, but it wasn't bad.

So I took it up to the house, cleaned the lenses a bit and at night I could use it. In Graz the street lighting is LED fluorescent, not mercury lamps, so light pollution is not as big as in other places.

And to be honest, it was exciting to see Jupiter and 4 of its satellites, or the rings of Saturn for the first time in my life, or the Moon, in great detail. Small, but visible. Not the wonderful images of the probes, but "the real thing". And you realize how small you are and how little time you have.