It's been fascinating reading about the astronomers observing planets orbiting distant stars. Now they have detected signs of water in a planet's atmosphere.
 There are fascinating proposals for actually getting images of these distant planets. One is the NASA Terrestrial Planet Finder which might use a space based interferometer array to see extremely distant objects like planets.
Imagine actually observing the weather on another water based planet like earth. Viewing its clouds, oceans and continents. This would be amazing.
The first observation of an extra-solor planet took place at Lick Observatory outside of San Jose back in 1999. The observatory sits atop Mount Hamilton. If you ever have an free afternoon in Silicon Valley, it's a fun afternoon's drive up to see it. They have a very cool old 36-inch refractor telescope that is open to the public. There are also beautiful vistas up there of the south San Francisco Bay. In the other direction you can sometimes see the Sierra Nevada across the central valley. Don't miss it.
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