Cloudy skies greeted 16 visitors to the Cronyn Observatory Open House, Saturday, June 1st, 2013, 8:30 p.m. Graduate student Abedin Y. Abedin made his digital slide presentation “Comets: The Dirty Snowball Model.” Graduate student Matt Shannon assisted and faculty member Dr. Peter Brown was also there. Dale Armstrong, Peter Jedicke and Dave McCarter represented the RASC London Centre. Dave brought the damaged and now fully repaired 8 X 50mm finderscope for the 25.4cm Dobsonian.
Following the slide presentation people came upstairs into the dome where Peter gave an overview of the history of the Cronyn Observatory. Dave then gave an extensive and entertaining talk on telescopes and visual astronomy using the 25.4cm refractor in the dome as well as the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian and the Observatory’s 8-inch (20.3cm) Meade 2080/LX3 Schmidt-Cassegrain for demonstration. Dale searched the Internet on the Observatory’s computer and retrieved a few images on the monitor to support Dave’s talk. Everybody was gone, possibly by 10:30 p.m., after an enjoyable evening of astronomy discussion despite the clouds.
Bob Duff
Higher Education Liaison
RASC London Centre