so we were on vacation in Colorado in June, and one night we stopped to sleep on the shoulder west of Rocky Mountain NP. Not long after turning the car off, we saw this bright light. Venus bright, and certainly not a plane or a shooting star pass overhead. We thought maybe it could be the space station. When we got home I looked up videos of what that is like, and possible times for the day it happened. Everything matched up, we saw the ISS. Not to mention the beautiful Milky Way that night. 11 months ago

spent some time using the telescope to spot venus. way too much time to find it in fact. But once we did get focused well, it was rewarding to see the planet about half lit.

However, the extreme difficulty of finding the brightest thing in that region of the sky with our telescope has got me thinking about getting rid of it. I much prefer IDing constellations. 13 months ago