Hi All;
Had a great time at the Mall a few Saturdays ago. We had a very good showing of ASTRA members. I'd say over a dozen members both young and old. The idea was to promote an interest in Astronomy in a Public setting on Astronomy Day. We set up a very respectable Telescope display. We had the follwing equipment, a home made 13" truss mounted Dob, two 12" LX200's, a 7" APO Refractor, an ETX125, a home made 4" APO Rfreactor, a 3.5" Questar, an 80MM Short Tube Refractor and a pair of 15X70 Binos on a Unimount. Hope I didn't miss anything.
Many curious shoppers stopped by with many questions. The most amazing thing was, not one person asked me, "What power is that Telescope?". "How much was that Telescope" was the question of the day, but we were amoung shoppers so that makes sence. We had many children come by with what seemed like 6 or 7 hands each. "Don't touch" was the phrase of the day. A slide picture of Saturn makes a real good indoor target. Both the 4" and 80MM Refractors were pointed at a slide in a black box with a light inside. It was placed about 50 ft. away. Everyone who looked in the scopes looked back and ask, "Where is that". You then pointed it out to them. "Oh WOW". That was lots of fun. The show lasted from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Plans were to set up at the Planetarium for a Public Starparty but the weather was not cooperative. Several people asked me if were going to do this more often. We do it once a year at the Mall. We plan about 5 or 6 Public Starparties a year but only about 2 or 3 come off due to, guess what, the weather. The public was pleased. This was a fine community service we performed and the pay was..... well I was very happy to be part of it. Good job everyone. Clear Skies;
That's it;
BOB SAL




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