It's the time of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Everyone's talking about the round thing that has to go into the square thing. But the title has nothing to do with football, but rather with the round moon. It's about the – also worldwide – campaign "On The Moon Again" (https://www.onthemoonagain.org/). People gathered at 611 locations in 57 countries to observe the Moon together and experience the magic of the first human moon landing.

Two out of three? We at kosmos-os had scheduled public observation sessions for three evenings - June 19, 20, and 21, 2026. We had to cancel the first session due to poor observing conditions, but on the other two evenings, we successfully trained our telescopes on the Moon. Hence: two out of three. Given the weather conditions in Osnabrück, that was a great success for us.

Our visitors appreciated it. Everyone was captivated by the immediate view of our nearest cosmic neighbor - for as an ordinary citizen of Earth, you cannot get any closer to the Moon. Images on the internet pale in comparison to the direct experience of viewing the Moon through a telescope beneath an evening summer sky.

Since we started early - at 8 p.m. - on both occasions, we had the Sun, with its numerous spots, on view alongside the Moon. Later on, we were joined by Venus - illuminated a little more than halfway - and, on June 21, by the strikingly colorful binary star system Albireo in the constellation Cygnus and the quadruple star system Epsilon Lyrae in Lyra.

Admittedly, these were the longest days of the year—meaning little darkness - but for us, they were two very lovely evenings of astronomy. Two against three, after all.

Impressions