Graduate student Parshati Patel made the digital slide presentation “Brownies & Sparks Astronomy Badge” before 43 visitors (26 children and 17 adults) from the 1st Dorchester Sparks and Brownies at the Cronyn Observatory for Exploring the Stars, Monday, February 3rd, 2014, 6:15 p.m. She followed this with the activity “Constellation”, distributing 25 “Star Finder” plansipheres and showing the children how to assemble and use them.
It was a cold clear night. Everett Clark and Bob Duff represented the RASC London Centre. Everett set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian telescope on the roof patio outside the dome. Physics and Astronomy Department Computer Resources person Henry Leparskas and his son Allan were there. Allan took a number of photographs of the Moon through the 25.4cm Dobsonian using his Canon 2-inch T-adapter attached to his single lens reflex digital camera, handheld in front of the 17mm Nagler eyepiece (66X). He also took pictures of the Moon through the 25.4cm refractor with the camera and T-adapter handheld in front of the 32mm Erfle eyepiece (137X). Henry left around 6:45 p.m. and Allan remained for a while.
Bringing the group upstairs into the dome, Parshati showed them the constellations out on the roof patio. Everett showed the visitors the Moon through the big 25.4cm refractor (137X) while Bob showed them Jupiter through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (66X). Later, Everett showed visitors the Jupiter through the 25.4cm refractor and Bob showed them the Orion Nebula (M42) through the 25.4cm Dobsonian. Everett tried to direct the 25.4cm refractor towards the double star Castor but steam from the heating plant made viewing impractical. The visitors were very appreciative of the excellent evening, with the slide presentation, plansipheres and astronomy under clear skies. Everybody was gone by 8:00 p.m.