Clear skies greeted 32 visitors (21 children and 11 adults) from the 110th Spark’s Unit for Exploring the Stars at the Cronyn Observatory, Monday, March 31st, 2014, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Dilini Subasinghe made the digital slide presentation Constellations. Dilini immediately followed this with the activity Constellations, distributing 22 Star Finder planispheres and assisted everybody with putting them together with Scotch tape. She showed them how to use the Star Finder planispheres with just one slide of the constellations for practice due to time constraints.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark and Bob Duff. Everett made ready the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome and set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X) on the Observatory’s roof patio, directing it towards the weathervane on the Engineering building. When everybody arrived upstairs in the dome, Bob gave a talk about the history of the Cronyn Observatory, explaining and demonstration the big 25.4cm refractor. He also explained the 2 clocks on the east wall and the difference between Standard and Sidereal Time.
Since it was still too bright outside to see anything in the sky, Bob showed the visitors the weathervane on the Engineering building through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X). Everybody was gone by around 7:30 p.m. after an enjoyable visit to the Cronyn Observatory to learn about the constellations.