[Chaos-l] Observing Report From Lunar Eclipse Session

[mdlemon at lemons-bend.com]

Whoa! Is Little River next Friday? Man, that almost snuck up on me.

Quoting Jayme Hanzak <jhanzak at unctv.org>:

> Thanks Robert and Walter for helping the Planetarium. As much fun as  
>  I had taking my pictures, I too enjoy hearing the joy of a novice   
> observer seeing Saturn for the first time.
>
> We have another opportunity to enjoy there experience again at   
> Little River Park next weekend.
>
> Speaking of which, we do have an open invitation to use the park for  
>  star gazing. However, the we would have a time limit. Maybe we can   
> work something out.
>
>
> Jayme
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Nielsen" <robertnielsen at nc.rr.com>
> To: "Chapel Hill Astronomical Observation Society" <chaos-l at rtpnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:53:52 PM (GMT-0500) Auto-Detected
> Subject: [Chaos-l] Observing Report From Lunar Eclipse Session
>
> Last night, the Morehead Planetarium hosted a lunar eclipse observing
> session on the sundial in front of the planetarium ... and in spite of
> the discouraging cloud cover right at the beginning of the session, it
> was a success, in my opinion!  I'm not sure about the number of people
> that attended ... but judging by the length of the line behind my
> telescope to see Saturn, I would guess there was between 100 and 200
> people there ... possibly up to 300.    At 8:30, when the session began
> (and the moon entered the penumbra), I thought we were in serious
> trouble concerning the clouds.  By 9 PM or so, the entire sky was
> covered with thick clouds, offering only seconds of visibility to the
> moon every now and then.   But as the totality approached, more and more
> "holes" in the clouds appeared, and between 10 PM and 11 PM ... it was
> actually pretty good.   Everyone who stayed got a good view of the
> eclipse, and views of Saturn through the various scopes.
>
> Some interesting anecdotes from the session:
>
> During the "cloudy" period early on ... people would wander by and ask
> "was this the place to see the eclipse?".   I would answer "yes", and
> more often than not, people would ask "where is it"?  I would politely
> answer that it was behind the clouds roughly toward the south and point
> in the general direction.   I was standing next to my telescope (which I
> admit is impressive to "muggles") and they wanted to know if they could
> see the eclipse through the telescope.   Again, I answered ... it's
> behind the clouds.    Sigh ...
>
> Multiple times during the night, some undergraduate coeds from UNC would
> see Saturn through my telescope and say things like "no way!" and "shut
> up!" when I told them they were just looking through lenses and mirrors
> at the real planet out in space.  A little while later, the SAME folks
> would show up, with 3-5 additional people ... just to see Saturn and the
> eclipse.   So there IS advantage to holding an observing session in the
> middle of town ... where visitors can immediately bring other visitors
> back to the site!
>
> One of the things I wanted to do during the night was to try to take
> some pictures of the eclipse (see my earlier posting for the URL to see
> the pictures).   Right about the time of the totality (roughly 10:30 PM)
> ... I broke into the line of people waiting to see Saturn through my
> scope and told them I needed to take some pictures (my camera was
> piggybacked on my scope).   Believe it or not, some people actually
> GRUMBLED because they had to wait in line a little longer to see
> things.   I guess that's the problem with public sessions ... no real
> "science" can really happen.   In any case, they figured out I really
> did have priority on my own scope, and settled down.
>
> I was ready, and counted the number of times someone said (looking at
> Saturn through my telescope for the first time) "it looks just like a
> sticker" - 79 times.
>
> Still ... the experience of being there when an 8-year-old kid sees
> Saturn ... and says "WOW!" ... is priceless.   I never get tired of it.
>
> Thanks again to the Morehead Planetarium for holding the session out
> front ... and inviting us to join.   Walter and I were worried that this
> was another one of those "once in a long while" astronomical events that
> was going to be "rained out" ... but eventually the weather
> cooperated.   It was a fun night ... especially when I got the text
> message that Duke had lost to Miami!!!!!!
>
> Robert
>
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