[Chaos-l] Helping Out Wednesday

[Robert Nielsen]

Letisha,

Hi!  I'm from CHAOS, and was forwarded the attached note, and I would 
like to help Wednesday night ... assuming the weather cooperates!

I have a couple of questions:

1) Where exactly is NCSU's observing site?   On the ag campus?  Near 
Jordan Lake?   Somewhere else?   Depending on the light pollution ... a 
12-inch or 18-inch telescope might not do THAT much better than the 
scopes you have.

2) What sort of assignments will the students have?   Some scopes may be 
better than others for certain tasks.   For example, a computerized 
go-to scope takes the "fun" (some people say) out of finding an object, 
so it might be better to use a non-go-to scope in that case.   Are they 
supposed to see and describe objects?  Then any scope will do, although 
the more aperture the better chance they might see something other than 
the easily visible objects.   Do they need to see different types of 
telescopes?   Then it might be beneficial to bring a Dobsonian and a 
short-tube refractor and perhaps an equitorially-mounted scope.

3) How many students will be there?   If a lot, I can see having lots of 
essentially the same telescopes will work.

4) Is there any chance we (CHAOS members) could stay there and observe 
more than the allotted hour?

The latter question is based on the fact that sometimes it takes a bit 
of time to setup a telescope.  Since you mentioned the "bigger" 
telescopes you saw at MASP, some of those can take 30-45 minutes to 
setup and only slightly less to take down.   If the observing is only 
for an hour, that seems a bit much.  But if observing for 5 hours ... it 
can be worth it.   Any chance we could setup early (around 6 PM) and 
stay later?

Of course, all this is dependent on the weather cooperating ... which is 
pretty fickle here in North Carolina.   So we ought to know better by 
Tuesday.   Let's hope!

Robert Nielsen

> *From: *Letisha McLaughlin <letishamc at gmail.com 
> <mailto:letishamc at gmail.com>>
> *Date: *November 28, 2008 7:57:25 AM EST
> *To: *chaos at rtpnet.org <mailto:chaos at rtpnet.org>
> *Subject: **Interested in observing?*
>
> Hello all,
>
>
> My name is Letisha McLaughlin I am a graduate student at North 
> Carolina State University and I teach the Astronomy labs there.  I met 
> a couple of your group members at MASP this year.  
>   I know it is late notice, but I would like to know if anyone in the 
> group is interested in a mid-week viewing next Wednesday, December 3. 
>  It is the end of our semester and as an extra-credit/additional 
> learning opportunity we have a 'late night lab' where we invite the 
> students out to the lab sight at a slightly later time (9:00 PM this 
> year) so that they may see celestial objects they could not see during 
> regular lab hours.  Typically they also have an assignment to do in 
> order to acquire extra-credit points.
>   I saw some very impressive telescopes out at MASP, I think the 
> students would really be impressed.  At the site we have 8 in. Schmidt 
> Cassegrains and binoculars, so I'm sure they would be amazed by the 
> capabilities of larger scopes.  We would not be out for longer than an 
> hour or so.  Please let me know if anyone is interested- you may 
> contact me at this email address.  
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Letisha
>
> -- 
> Letisha A. McLaughlin
> North Carolina State University
> Physics Graduate Program
> (919) 515-4196
> letishamc at gmail.com <mailto:letishamc at gmail.com>