Jackie the world of amateur astronomy is pretty cool. Pick up a copy of "Sky and Telescope" magazine sometime and you'll see what I mean. One of my favorite features is the section of photographs submitted by subscribers. They have these motorized telescopes that compensate for the turning of the earth, and they can take time exposure photographs to bring out distant, faint objects like galaxies that are invisible to the eye. (That is, not just invisible to the naked eye but also to the eye with telescope.) Also cool are solar filters that block 99.99% of the light, and allow you to look at the sun and see sun spots, solar prominences, etc.