We then went up to our observatory, where we were able to see the sun through our 8-inch telescope with a solar filter. We actually got to see sunspots, which was pretty impressive... It looked something like this (courtesy SpaceWeather.com):
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v253/Chilana_1986/hmi4096_blank.jpg)
After all the kiddies had thanked us and left, N and I decided that since we were already on the roof, we may as well hang out on the building's balcony for a while. The balcony looks like this:
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v253/Chilana_1986/2009_0327AT.jpg)
As we turned the corner, we both stopped dead in our tracks. Right in front of us, sitting on the edge of the railing, was a really big bird, which I'm pretty sure was a peregrine falcon. We managed to sneak towards it, hiding behind the short columns on the balcony until we were within a few meters of it. At that point, it decided it'd had enough of us and casually jumped off the ledge to fly away. N managed to get some decent pictures with his iPhone:
![](http://i.imgur.com/VvHLN.jpg)
![](http://i.imgur.com/7F87G.jpg)
(Who knows why that last picture looks so strange? I guess we'll say it's impressionist and call it a day.)
It certainly made an impression on me.
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