Watch the stars shine with your family and pets

Written by Dr.Laxmi Iyer

What do you say to your family and your pets after you come home? Do you say and do things that are different, daring, educative or sometimes just plain fun? Or do you turn into a couch potato? How many times have your family and pets seen you come home and unwind in front of the TV? You sitting in front of the TV set and absent mindedly talking to your pets, family and the world at large and channel surfing, all in one breath. If this is the norm and that's the good life for you, then go ahead and do that. However, if you feel that spending quality time communicating with your family is a must, then you need to go out and follow that.

Night is the time when the stars are out. It's also perhaps the only time when you are really available - body, mind and soul for your pet and your family. Free from the stress of sticking to a hectic work schedule, you can actually share quality time with your family.

If you want to be an astronomy pro, there's no need anymore to be the house hermit. Locking yourself out in the terrace. And spending hours alone looking up at the sky and stars - even as you distance yourself from your family and your pets by a few light years.

Don't let anyone in your family feel isolated and left out because of your hobby, passion, lifetime dream - call it what you will. Just call the gang in - kids, life partners, parents, cats, dogs, parakeets - whoever is interested. You will be surprised at how exciting star gazing can get.

If people in your family are not fanatic about your hobby the way you are, there's a way to get around that. Talk to them at length. That doesn't mean you bombard them with facts and details about constellations and galaxies. They will all feel lost.

Do this one step at at time. Fill them in with little bits of interesting information. You could tell the kids some interesting anecdotes from the lives of famous astronomers. May be buy them some cute T shirts with interesting star gazing facts written. Or may be you could play some CD based games on astronomy with them.

You could even have a little astronomy fun fair in your neighbourhood. Encourage the kids to dress up as astronauts, make giant sized cardboards cutouts of the solar system or even watch films that relate to astronomy.

If everything fails, there's one that won't. The smartest and quickest way to get everyone in the family really excited and passionate about your hobby is to get the pets interested. I am not joking on this. Just check it out. There are some very good reasons for this. Pets are a families great lifeline for love.

Take the family's family pet - dog, cat or bird up to your astronomy room. That's a guaranteed attention grabber! Show your pet the stars through the telescope.

In seconds, everyone in your family and even your neighbourhood will queue up to have a quick look through the lens to see if Friskie really saw the stars! Get me!

After weeks of star gazing at night, you may get a pleasant surprise when you see that Friskie has actually started recognizing the constellations - by cueing into the different patterns of the dots.