A cloudy sky with some light snow greeted 11 visitors (including 3 children) to Western University’s Cronyn Observatory Weekday Public Night, Monday, January 15th, 2018, 7:00 p.m. Since there was no slide presentation, graduate student Amanda DeSouza greeted visitors and directed them upstairs into the dome. She showed one group the “Spectroscopy Demo,” downstairs in the “Black Room.” Amanda counted 11 visitors for the evening.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark, later joined by Bob Duff. Since snowy weather ruled out opening the dome, Everett set up the observatory’s 8-inch (20.3cm) Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain (26mm Plossl eyepiece, 77X) inside the dome so as to view the TV screen in the Western Sports & Recreation Center windows, through the door to the observation deck. Everett gave interested visitors 3 “Star Finder” planispheres and 3 “Moon Gazers’ Guide” cards.
Downstairs in the “Black Room” Amanda did the “Spectroscopy Demo,” for 3 visitors, who put on the diffraction grating glasses to view the spectra of 4 gas discharge lamps set out on the table, including: hydrogen, helium, neon and mercury. Amanda gave one of the observatory’s solar eclipse glasses to an interested visitor. The observatory was closed down around 8:32 p.m. after an interesting evening for the visitors, learning about astronomy, despite the unfavourable weather.