Amy Mainzer, and I'’m here at the gigantic Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory.

Astronomers like me use telescopes to peer deep into the universe so we can see things that are really far away.

You might have your own telescope at home, and you probably don'’t even know it.

It'’s called a pair of binoculars.

A pair of binoculars is like two little mini telescopes, one for each eye.

You, too, can see a lot of things that you wouldn'’t be able to see with just your eyes alone.

One of my favorite things to do is just go look at the Moon.

The Moon looks beautiful with a pair of binoculars.

You can see all kinds of detail.

You can see craters, mountains, and shadows that you just couldn'’t see with your eyes alone.

Other fun things to look at with binoculars are the moons of Jupiter.

Jupiter is a planet that'’s far away from us in the outer parts of the solar system, but it'’s got four very large moons that orbit it, and you can see those with a pair of binoculars.

Another classic target for a pair of binoculars is the Orion Nebula.

This is a giant cloud of gas and dust that you can find in the constellation Orion.

If you look just down from the stars in the belt, you'’ll see a little fuzzy blob with your eyes.

If you look at this blob with a pair of binoculars, you can start to see it resolve into a giant gas cloud.

It'’s a place where huge amounts of new stars are being formed right now.

There are a lot of wonderful things you can look at with a pair of binoculars, so the next time you find a pair of binoculars in a drawer or in a closet, grab them and get them ready to go look at the night sky.