Partly cloudy, gradually clearing skies greeted 82 visitors to Western University’s Cronyn Observatory Summer Public Night, Saturday, July 14th, 2018, 8:30 p.m. Graduate student Taylor Armitage made 2 presentations of her digital slide presentation “Why is Pluto No Longer a Planet?” and fielded questions. There were about 30 visitors for Taylor’s first slide presentation and 17 for the second slide presentation. RASC London Centre members Bob Duff and Peter Jedicke counted a total of 82 visitor for the evening. Graduate student Ameek Sidhu did the “Transit Demonstration” and the “Spectroscopy Demonstration” downstairs in the “Black Room.”
Graduate student Collin Knight was telescope operator in the dome and directed the big 25.4cm refractor (Meade 28mm Super Wide Angle eyepiece, 157X) towards Venus as the sky cleared in the west. He directed the 25.4cm refractor towards Jupiter in the hazy, cloudy, southern sky later in the evening.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark, Heather MacIsaac, Bob Duff, Peter Jedicke, Henry Leparskas, Mark Tovey and Dale Armstrong. On the observation deck outside the dome Everett showed visitors Venus and Jupiter through the London Centre’s home-built 30.5cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 88X) and Peter showed them the star Altair. Henry showed visitors the double star Mizar and Alcor (88X) and then swapped in the 12.5mm Ortho eyepiece (120X) to show them the “Double-Double” star system Epsilon Lyrae through the 30.5cm Dobsonian. Dale operated the observatory’s Meade 8-inch (20.3cm) Schmidt-Cassegrain, showing visitors Jupiter, using the 12.5mm Ortho eyepiece (160X) and later swapping in the 18mm Radian eyepiece (111 X) for a better view.
Heather MacIsaac set up her Celestron NexStar 90SLT 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain and showed visitors Venus and Jupiter, using the 17mm Plossl eyepiece (73.5X). Heather also showed interested visitors the optical tube for the Dobsonian telescope she was building, made of a concrete form tube with a 2-inch focuser installed. She later tried fitting the primary mirror cell in the concrete form tube, with some assistance from Everett and Dale.
Downstairs in the “Black Room” graduate student Ameek Sidhu did the “Transit Demonstration” activity, with the “Transit Demo” model—showing how the transit detection method worked for finding extra-solar planets, and the “Spectroscopy Demonstration,” with the visitors putting on diffraction grating glasses to view the spectra of 4 gas discharge lamps, including hydrogen, helium, neon and mercury.
Henry Leparskas and later Mark Tovey showed visitors the “1940s Period Room,” a recreation of Dr. H. R. Kingston’s 1940 office, with his brass refractor and the Sotellunium—a mechanical eclipse demonstration model built by W. G. Colgrove—on display; and the “1967 Period Room,” recreating the early control room of the Elginfield Observatory to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation—Canada 150. Mark also showed them the newly created “W. G. Colgrove Workshop Period Room,” which was open for visitors’ inspection. The 3 “Period Rooms” were designed by RASC London Centre member Mark Tovey.
The visitors were gone by around 11:00 p.m. and the observatory was closed down by 11:30 p.m. after an enjoyable evening of astronomy.