Graduate student Matt Shannon made his digital slide presentation, “Galaxies in the Universe,” before some 36 visitors at the Cronyn Observatory Open House, Saturday, July 7th, beginning shortly after 8:30 p.m. More people arrived with some going directly upstairs into the dome for a total of some 50 visitors by the end of the evening. Other graduate students included Ed Stokan, supervising visitors, and Allison Hill. Undergraduate student Matt Abado operated the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome.
RASC London Centre members included Everett Clark, Bob Duff, Dale Armstrong, Peter Jedicke, Dave McCarter and Gaetan Godin. Gaetan brought his home-built 20.3cm Dobsonian and set it up on the Observatory’s roof patio, showing his fellow RASC London members his newly rebuilt primary mirror cell!
The big 25.4cm refractor remained tracking on Saturn the entire evening with the 28mm Meade Super Wide Angle eyepiece (157X) and Dave at the top of the ladder showing visitors the ringed planet. On the roof patio Dale took charge of the Observatory’s Meade 8-inch (203mm) LX3 Schmidt-Cassegrain showing visitors Saturn, Mars, Izar (Epsilon Bootes) and Albireo, using the 12.5mm Orthoscopic eyepiece (160X); and M13 and M57, using the 18mm Radian eyepiece (111X).
Bob showed visitors Saturn and Mars, through the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian, using the 6mm Orthoscopic eyepiece (190.5X), and Albireo, using the 17mm Nagler eyepiece (67X). Gaetan showed visitors Saturn and Albireo through his home-built 20.3cm Dobsonian. People were still observing past 11:00 p.m. and the Observatory was closed around 11:30 p.m. after a very successful evening of astronomy.
Bob Duff
Higher Education Liaison
RASC London Centre