  Astronomy and astrophysics are regarded as highly motivating topics for
students in primary and secondary schools, and they have been a recurrent and
effective resource to inspire passion about science. In fact, during the last
years we have witnessed a boost of facilities providing small robotic
telescopes for teachers and students to remotely undertake their own observing
projects. A step forward is presented here, where we describe the experience of
secondary school students attending professional observations of Venus at
NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) and, in a second observing run,
conducting the observations by themselves. In addition to quickly mastering the
basic operation of the control software for the SpeX instrument, the students
successfully performed different types of data acquisition, including drift
scan imaging.
