[Chaos-l] Observing With The Morehead Planetarium Saturday Night

[Robert Nielsen]

Everyone,

You might have looked out the window about 8 PM on Saturday, and 
thought the observing would be bad (with the large cloud bank 
approaching from the south), but it actually turned out pretty 
well!   I was there with my 10" LX200, the UNC folks (including Josh 
Haislip) brought their normal contingent of scopes, and there were 
three other scopes from people not associated with either CHAOS or MPSC.

The night started out with everyone looking at Jupiter (which because 
it was so low in the eastern sky, was under the cloud bank).  By 
about 9:30. the sky overhead cleared up and scopes started showing 
Saturn (which looked better than Jupiter because it was overhead) and 
I started showing people more esoteric things, like M3 and M13 
(globulars) and M81 and M82 (galaxies).   Josh was explaining the 
constellations in the sky (mainly the Big Dipper and Leo) and there 
was a steady stream of complete neophytes who were fascinated that 
you could see the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter!

I helped some cub scouts get an astronomy (I think) belt loop by 
explaining how telescopes worked in general, and mine worked in 
particular.  I also talked to some of the other folks who brought 
scopes, and I think I convinced a couple of them to come to CHAOS 
meetings in the future.    With the cloud bank, and the light dome 
towards Durham, it wasn't the best observing night ... but that 
really wasn't the point.   This was meant to promote CHAOS and help 
the planetarium ... and I think we accomplished both!

Next month, come out with me and help people get interested in astronomy!

Robert Nielsen