Visit to the Observatory (Urania Sternwart)

Once a month the Observatory in Zurich opens its doors to children from six-years-old to view the telescope, and when the weather is favourable, view stars. Venus I think the astronomer said was easily visible with a telescope in the daytime, but it was in Swiss-German so he could have been talking about Uranus. As it's a building we can see from the house, it seemed appropriate to see if we could see the house from the observatory — we could — but despite his efforts, we couldn't see papa frantically waving from the window (Dayglo was needed). The talk was long, his telescope even longer (like something from Star Wars), but all interesting enough to keep the children engaged for nearly an hour. Seeing the roof open up, and twist around was cool (for the kids at least) but not a twinkle in sight. We'll have to go back on a clear day.