Poem

A dome above will shift, whir, and rotate.
Out at the school at night so late.
The sky above hopefully stays clear,
A cloudy night is the astronomical fear.
A massive telescope of impressive proportions,
Considerably larger than smaller options,
points at a world nearby yet so far,
with four moons that each resemble a star.
Cloud banding and detail just barely visible,
and occasionally a grand red spot, though it may be dismissable
as an illusion
as I can't help but feel sometimes objects I see are just delusions.

Out on the patio--a set of concrete slabs,
not too far from the classroom labs,
are more telescopes--smaller Dobsonians,
Similarly suitable for viewings of all things Jovian.
Just smaller and blurrier,
Oh look, a dog has arrived with a family! I can't tell, is it a terrier?
Speaking of dogs, take a look at The Dog Star, dear guest,
Sirius, blue Ay-One-Five, I'll explain my best,
Why it's bluer than orange Kay-Oh-Three Arcturus,
A screen door in a foam doughnut will assist us:

The spectrum of both stars can be seen with this diffractor--
A rainbow of another star seen through high zoom factor.
Looking at Sirius we see a full rainbow with an emphasis on the blue.
But Arcturus's light spikes forego entirely that hue.
This is because stars glow with temperature defining their wavelength peak
Young Sirius at Twenty Five Kilokelvin, Forty-Three Hundred Kelvin for the ol' antique
So you see old Arcturus isn't energetic enough for blue, it's peak is right at Red true,
(Though a tad of shorter wavelengths sneak their way towards blue
but none visibly brighter than the color of bright green)
Oddly enough this phenomenon is not what astronomers had foreseen.
They didn't know what to expect from star colors in the nineteenth century,
Astronomical science at the time was relatively rudimentary.

Not just these things but plenty others too,
Every Friday night (weather permitting) I stare at the sky like a fool,
And I say to myself, "man, space is cool."