Since 2011 RASC London Centre members have been assisting with the first year student Astronomy 1021 Cronyn Observatory Telescope Projects. This year, RASC London Centre members set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian and the Cronyn Observatory’s Meade 8-inch (20.3cm) Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes on the Observatory’s balcony to supplement the 25.4cm refractor in the dome. The Astronomy 1021 students had 5 telescope projects to complete including observations of the Moon, M13, Albireo, M57 and M31.
A total of 13 Cronyn Observatory Astronomy 1021 Projects evenings took place, September 10th—October 3rd, 2013, which involved 650 Astronomy 1021 student visits supervised by 4 graduate students (TAs) each evening. (There were a total of 9 graduate student TAs involved.) Since the Astronomy 1021 students needed to visit to the Cronyn more than once to complete and register their projects, the graduate student TA maintaining records reported 448 students in total. This does not include 2 evenings (Wednesday, September 11th and Thursday, October 3rd), which were cancelled due to cloudy skies.
There were 4 RASC London Centre members who took part in these 13 events for a RASC London Centre Participation Rate = 32. The number of Amateur Telescopes Used / Usage Rate = 2 / 23.
Many thanks go to RASC London Centre members Everett Clark, Bob Duff, Steve Gauthier and Peter Jedicke who assisted with these Astronomy 1021 projects!