[Chaos-l] Solar observing, day/night talks Little River [ Was Re: Up coming events ]

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

Last sat I had planned to so come astronomy with a bunch of 3rd grade cubscouts 
camping at Lake Jordan. The program was going to be solar observing about an 
hour before sunset and then later the stars. To fill in the gap, while the sky 
grew dark, I planned to give my canned talk on why we have day/night, seasons, 
phases of the moon, and eclipses.

We were clouded out, so I just gave the talk on day/night etc, using a 
flashlight, a globe of the earth and a grapefruit for the moon. AFAICT it went 
down well. If you want a 2nd opinion, you can check with the Akela

Caroline Wilgen <kerryyikes at hotmail.com>

As with any audience, there's a wide range in comprehension.  Everyone got 
day/night, but only 2 out of the 10 cubscouts made it through to eclipses, while 
the other kids wandered off one by one through the talk.

I used to give this talk at Astronomy Days in Raleigh, when I manned to orrery. 
I'd wait for a few people to gather around (looking at the orrery - "what is 
it?") and look for someone with interested eyes (usually a kid) and ask "do you 
know why we have day and night?". I'd go through the sequence to eclipses until 
people wandered off and I was left with no audience. A few minutes later, new 
people would appear and I'd wait for someone with interested eyes to appear. I 
guess I did the talk every 10mins for the whole day.

What I found was that most adults didn't understand the principles either. At 
least half of them didn't want to know and would walk off.

>From talking to the people who come to Little River for the observing sessions, 
most are interested and willing to learn, but with a thin understanding of 
astronomy, celestial mechanics and optics (quite reasonably). It occured to me 
that we could start the Little River program earlier and have solar observing 
followed by the day/night talk. It would take a while for the public to find out 
about the new program, and to find out how many people were interested in why we 
have day/night. I would regard it worth my time if one person went away 
understanding why we have day/night. I expect we'd only need one scope on the 
sun. It only takes 15secs to see the sunspots and you're done. Then you have to 
wait for nightfall. Perhaps people could be encouraged to bring a picnic dinner 
to fill in the time between solar observing and dark.

The observing field at Little R isn't suitable for solar observing - all those 
damned trees, cut them all down I say :-). Possibly the bottom of the parking 
lot is OK. A flashlight doesn't work real well as a stand-in for the sun while 
it's still light. It would be better to use a 500W halogen lamp (which I have). 
This would mean we need 120V, which I assume is available from the bathrooms and 
using an extension cord (which I have). I'd also need a park picnic table to 
hold my visual aids.

Any interest?

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
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